season four
by cedricsowner
Summary: While still hoping that another network picks up the show, here an idea how it could continue... beware, this is going to be a long story. Mind the rating, some chapters are rather dark. Here comes chapter TWENTY-EIGHT.
1. in coldest blood

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

_**~ in coldest blood ~**_

It was three o'clock in the morning. Light rain was coming down from a moonless sky in a thin veil, vaguely illuminated by the street lamps.

Neither Adam Lucas nor Tommy Sullivan said a word as they pulled up in front of the apartment house right by the intersection.

Only women small-talked at this unholy hour. They were guys. They kept their mouths shut till there actually _was _something to talk about.

Despite its location the building looked well-maintained. Nice view, too, if you ignored the constant roar of the traffic, even this early in the morning. As far as they could tell in the darkness there was a small park on the other side of the road, and a playground, too. They had both definitely seen worse areas of Philly.

Predictably, the place was already crawling with people – uniformed officers, crime scene investigators, witnesses… yellow police tape flapped in the drizzle and an ambulance was just in the process of leaving again, empty. The medical examiner's car later, much later, would definitely carry a heavier load, from everything they knew so far.

Twenty years as a cop had hardened his stomach, there wasn't much Tommy hadn't encountered over time, but he would be lying if he claimed that there wasn't always a brief moment, just the tiniest split of a second, usually right before he crossed the threshold of a murder house, when he didn't feel the urge to just turn around and leave again.

Adam Lucas felt the same, but he would have rather bitten his tongue off than admitting this to someone.

Especially not to his partner Tommy, battle-hardened veteran of law enforcement and, to a certain degree that excluded his approach to women, his role model.

The initial report had described the state of the victims as "poor", and, now that they were standing in the midst of the apartment's bedroom-turned-scene-of-crime, both Adam and Tommy couldn't agree more.

"What do we have here?" Megan's voice, accompanied by the familiar clicking of her heels on the wooden floor panels in the corridor.

A soothing sound, somehow, in the midst of all this carnage. Tommy stole a second of concentration to inhale Megan's expensive perfume as she came standing by his side, impatiently waiting to be briefed.

"Two victims, one male, one female. Both in their fifties. Looks like they were asleep when somebody broke in and shot them", Adam Lucas said.

Proceeding cautiously, Megan approached the bed. The cream colored wall behind it was covered in blood spatter. Just like the carpet, the curtains and the mirror at the far end of the room. "Droplets so far away from the bodies indicates main arterial bleeding. Death within seconds. They didn't stand a chance." Producing a pair of tweezers she lifted the female victim's bed sheet a bit.

"I also think your assumption about them sleeping when it happened is correct. The blankets weren't removed and later put back by the killer. Look at the way they are tucked in underneath the arms and behind the back… that's how you do it when you fall asleep… you wrap yourself in the bed sheet… they didn't see it coming."

Nobody said it out loud, but considering that the bodies were literally riddled with bullets, probably a good thing.

One of the uniformed officers announced the arrival of the landlord and Adam went to talk to him.

"Looks like a silencer was involved", Tommy said. "The tenants claim they didn't hear a thing. Only when the dog next door didn't want to stop barking the neighbor went to check, noticed the damaged door lock and called us."

"A silencer? I don't know… A silencer is the sign of a professional and this looks like total overkill… a telltale indicator that we're dealing with an amateur." Megan shone a flashlight at the murdered man's face. He had a graying moustache and bushy eyebrows that looked as if at one point in his life they had been singed off and later regrown.

"The golden chain around his neck should be worth several hundred dollars", she said. "Either the burglar didn't see, or…"

"This wasn't a break-in", Tommy finished her sentence. "The apartment was tossed, but not like a burglar would have done… Looks more like a cover up to me."

"I've just talked to the landlord…" Tucking his notepad away, Adam Lucas came back in. "The apartment is rented out to a woman named Luisa Perez. She is in her early twenties, a waitress at the diner two blocks down the road. Tried calling them, they're closed for the night. She doesn't answer her cell."

"So who are these two?", Tommy said, frowning.

"I've already asked the neighbor with the dog, he says he has no idea", Adam shrugged. "It seems Luisa Perez is rarely home and even when she is she doesn't really socialize with her neighbors."

Suddenly Megan sniffed, first at the male, then at the female body. Frowning, she looked around the room. "Could you… could you, please?" She made waving gestures with her arms.

Exchanging puzzled looks, both Tommy and Adam moved out of the way.

"They both consumed alcohol before they went to sleep. Judging from the smell, quite a bit of it. And look at the discarded clothes everywhere on the floor. I don't think that was done by the murderer when he tossed up the apartment. There's blood spatter on the clothes… I think these two had a wild night…"

"That turned wilder than they had bargained for", Tommy nodded.

An officer called from the kitchen – they had found a woman's purse with a driving license in it. The picture matched the female victim.

"Martha Ruiz", Adam read from the card. "Ruiz? The tenant's name is Perez…"

"And her companion here seems to be Mr. Carlos Alba…" Megan lifted a wallet from discarded trousers on the floor. "No Perez either… well, once I've got them on the table I might know more."

"I'm with the medical examiner", an unfamiliar voice by the apartment's entrance, identifying himself to the officer on watch, could be heard just then. "Steven Kershaw, Medical Investigator."

Megan rolled her eyes in an expression of obvious annoyance and was still pouting when a young man appeared by the doorstep of the bedroom. He was slightly older than Adam, short blond hair, a bit ruffled – from having to get up at this unholy hour or because it always looked like that? His broad shoulders indicated he was into some kind of physically demanding sport, football maybe.

"You accidentally left the wrong address of the crime scene for me, Dr. Hunt", he said, smiling, not a hint of irony in his voice. "Luckily the police department could help me out."

If looks could kill, they would have needed a third casket in that bedroom at that point.

Steven Kershaw had the sympathy of the people in attendance on his side. They all, even the uniformed police officers, knew what had happened to every single one of Dr. Hunt's assistants ever since Peter Dunlap's death.

"Well, you are too late. We're done here and heading back to the office now. I need you to stop on the way and get me a decent cup of coffee." Head held high, Megan walked past him.

"Already waiting in your car, Dr. Hunt. I took the liberty of making a short detour so you'd be able to start with the autopsy right away." Nodding in departure, still smiling in a friendly, totally unforced, non-triumphant way, Steven Kershaw turned around and followed Megan.

"Something tells me he's a bit above trained monkey level", Adam grinned.

Then the men with the zinc caskets walked in and back to gruesome business they were.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

The autopsy didn't reveal as much as Megan had hoped, except for the fact that Martha Ruiz had been hit by significantly more bullets than Mr. Alba. For whatever reason the murderer's wrath had been focused on the female victim.

Megan also confirmed that the two had had sex with each other prior to their deaths. Consensual sex, by all indicators. Judging from the old scars in her stomach region, Martha Ruiz had given birth to at least one child. Megan opened the old scar and took a sample of the underlying tissue, more out of interest than anything else. It looked a bit thicker than it should have been. Both Ruiz and Alba had a significantly raised blood alcohol level.

The alcohol level was the first element of the crime that got Tommy and Adam thinking – a search of the Perez apartment had produced neither empty bottles nor glasses with alcoholic residues. Actually except for one dusty bottle of red wine that looked as if it had been a not much appreciated gift (there was still a fading ribbon wound around its neck) they couldn't find any alcoholic beverages at all in any of the rooms.

So where had Alba and Ruiz gotten so drunk?

They checked the local bars. A neighbor vaguely remembered having seen a taxi pulling up in front of the apartment building, but he hadn't paid attention to the passengers, couldn't even say whether the vehicle had been picking someone up or dropping someone off. Well, at least he remembered a green symbol on the passenger's door so that determining the taxi company didn't pose much of a problem.

It turned out Mr. Alba and Mrs. Ruiz had been drinking in a fairly modest bar downtown, rather popular with patrons of a certain age who preferred it low key. Adam and Tommy retrieved the bar's video surveillance material. Luckily it didn't show vague gray silhouettes in a grainy snowstorm for a change. The picture quality was surprisingly good.

They watched first Mr. Alba enter the bar, then, a little later, Mrs. Ruiz. It didn't look as if they had deliberately decided to meet there. At first they just shot each other brief glances. After a while Alba bought Ruiz a drink. They moved closer together, started first talking, then laughing… drank some more… the frequency of casual touches grew… At around midnight they apparently decided to go home together.

From then on they had had roughly two more hours left to live.

Judging from all they knew so far, Mr. Carlos Alba had met the wrong woman at the wrong place at the wrong time – he had been nothing but an uninvolved stranger, stumbling into a deathtrap set for somebody else.

So what had Martha Ruiz done that somebody felt she deserved such a violent end?

Meanwhile laboratory findings came back regarding the DNA traces they had found in the apartment. The DNA on various appliances in the apartment's bathroom and kitchen shared alleles with Martha Ruiz' DNA but didn't completely match it. Megan called Tommy in person: "Martha Ruiz and Luisa Perez were mother and daughter. Maybe she was apartment sitting for her child?"

The local resident's registration office confirmed their assumption: Luisa Perez and Martha Ruiz were mother and daughter. Interviews with Ruiz' neighbors confirmed Megan's theory: She had mentioned apartment sitting for her daughter on the day she was last seen, pulling the garbage cans into her garage.

But where was Luisa Perez? She still wasn't answering her cell. They tried locating it, but it was turned off. Luckily by midday they finally managed to reach the manager of the diner and had a chance to talk to her co-workers.

"Luisa and her boyfriend Shawn are on a camping trip in the Poconos", Suzie, one of the waitresses that usually worked the shift with Perez, explained to the two detectives, nervously chewing her lower lip. "She was sooo excited about it… Borrowed a tent from Brian, our colleague, and other outdoor stuff, too. She took three days off for this trip – the first time she and Shawn would be really off on their own, you know? Do you think something happened to her?"

"Do _you_ think something happened to her?", Tommy asked, bright blue eyes trained on the waitress. He wasn't exactly smiling at her, but his face was friendly and his whole demeanor expressed a certain aura of poise and calmness. Adam had seen him display this behavior before. It was aimed at putting witnesses at ease. Worked on suspects, too, depending on the circumstances.

Suzie reacted right away and exactly the way Tommy was hoping for.

"It might be all in my head, but Brian wasn't happy at all with Luisa going off on a camping trip with some other guy. I think he had a crush on her… don't tell him I said that!"

In Tommy's experience the incriminated person usually knew pretty well who had given the cops a line on something. No need for telling.

Brian Wilson was no exception. "Let me guess, Suzie Webber told you I was jealous… gosh, barely twenty and already an old blabbermouth."

"So were you jealous?", Tommy asked. It sounded casual but the way he subtly squared his shoulders made very clear he wouldn't let him off the hook.

"She was a nice girl. Would have liked knowing her better. But she was head over heels into that Shawn… I've got better things to do with my time than wasting it on hopeless cases."

Listening to Wilson Adam Lucas couldn't quite shake the feeling they were barking up the wrong tree. The murderer had clearly aimed his wrath at Martha Ruiz. Shouldn't they investigate her environment? But on the other hand, the neighbors had said she didn't have any friends regularly coming over and the one person who knew her best was probably her daughter.

In addition to that it was very odd that they couldn't reach her.

"Did Luisa tell you where exactly in the Poconos she and her boyfriend were heading? The name of the campsite? Did she mention Shawn's last name? Suzie claimed Luisa never mentioned it", Adam said, seeking eye contact with Wilson. He was not avoiding it.

"No idea where they went. She said he wanted to surprise her. And as to his last name – if Suzie doesn't know it, nobody does." Brian Wilson paused. "Luisa loves her mom very much. This will break her heart."

"Is it very likely for Luisa to turn her cell phone off?" Tommy asked.

"So that she wouldn't be able to keep Suzie updated about how her weekend was going?" Brian shook his head. He looked worried.

So were Tommy and Adam. Something wasn't right about this. Not at all.

Just then someone from the CSI unit called. They had noticed an interesting detail about the apartment's door.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

"Look at the spring latch", the CSI told Tommy and Adam. "Do you notice something?"

Both detectives stifled a sigh. CSIs, especially those lab rats that only processed the incoming material and barely ever got to see the light of a real crime scene often had the habit of playing twenty questions with other law enforcement personnel, maybe as a way of subconscious retaliation for their neon light illuminated existence.

"Looks normal to me", Adam said, shrugging. "Like a regular spring latch."

"That's exactly the point!" The CSI was having a ball and Tommy and Adam decided to let him have his moment in the sun. Everybody deserved a boost of one's self-esteem every now and then.

"The latch is completely unharmed. Only a few, barely visible horizontal scratches that come with the usual wear and tear when a latch retracts or engages with the key." The CSI produced a magnifying glass and showed them the scratches.

"Now, remember, the neighbor alerted the police when he noticed the handle had been tampered with. It was pointing downward at an unusual angle. The way the handle was manipulated indicated at first sight that the perp had forced the door open and in the process broken the cylinder that operates the latch…"

Realization dawned on both Tommy and Adam at the same time. "But in that case the latch would have suffered some sort of damage…"

The CSI smiled. He loved teaching people. "Exactly! If the door lock had been broken open like the state of the handle indicated, the latch would have never remained this intact. Someone opened the door in the completely regular way and then later broke the door handle mechanism to make it _look_ like a break-in."

They had already suspected that the break-in was merely a cover up and it was nice seeing their theory confirmed, but the intact latch hinted at something else, something rather worrisome.

"Ruiz and Alba were asleep when they were shot. They can't have let the killer in. So he must have had a key…", Adam concluded. "He… Or she…"

"According to the landlord there are only two keys in existence for the apartment", the CSI happily informed them.

Tommy was already on the phone. "We need to find Luisa Perez and her boyfriend. Alert the rangers, organize search parties, it is possible that they were assaulted during their camping trip, could be that someone took the key to her apartment, came back and killed the mother and her companion. Look for a destroyed camp site, a thrown over tent, something in that direction. Unfortunately we don't know which car they're using, the unknown boyfriend picked her up… It's also possible that Luisa Perez herself came back to murder her mother…"

Although, judging from everything they'd heard so far regarding the mother-daughter relationship it was highly unlikely. What they had found out yet all pointed in one direction and one direction only: Martha Ruiz and Carlos Alba were most likely not the only victims they'd soon have to deal with.

Things didn't look good for Luisa and Shawn.

Tommy's mobile signaled. Megan. "You might want to come over. There's something I'd like to show you."

When they arrived at the Medical Examiner's office, Steven Kershaw was on all fours in the middle of the lobby, apparently taking swipe samples from the floor.

"Let me guess, Dr. Hunt said she needed the data and it was not your place to ask what for?" Extending a hand, Adam helped Steven to his feet.

"She phrased it a little more straight-forwardly but yeah, that's pretty much what it boiled down to." He put the last of the cotton swabs in the transport box. "Well, who knows, maybe I find some mutated dormant virus sticking to the floor that'll turn us all into zombies once awakened… if Dr. Hunt lets me experiment around a little I could try and find a remedy…"

Adam threw his head back and laughed. "Okay, you've definitely spent too much time around Ethan. You came over from New York, right? Tommy is from NY, too. He and I are getting together for football at the end of the week. You wanna join? He's got a story or two about Dr. Hunt…"

Steven raised his eyebrows. Apparently the existence of a more personal connection between Detective Sullivan and Megan Hunt was new to him. "Sounds like a plan."

Megan called from the autopsy room and a few moments later Adam found himself looking at padded, bloody tissue inside Martha Ruiz' stomach area.

"What do you see?", she asked, using a pair of tweezers to spread the various layers of flesh a little.

Adam stifled a sigh. Oh now, not another round of twenty questions… Megan was lab rat, but she did like showing off.

"Do me a favor and walk us through, will you?", Tommy, much to Adam's relief, cut Megan's lesson short. "We've got four search teams with dogs combing through the Poconos and still didn't get the use of helicopters okayed. Got to talk to some more people…" He obviously wasn't looking forward to it. As much as he enjoyed the greater freedom that came with the Captain's position still being vacant, the additional paperwork was a nightmare.

"If asking nicely makes you that uncomfortable when it comes to such trivial things as helicopters, you should definitely never attempt a career in politics…" Kate came breezing in. "Tell me you've got something. The Latin American community is putting pressure on the mayor who, in turn, is putting pressure on me…"

"You call helicopters a triviality?"

"Try asking for a search warrant against a local bigwig and we'll talk again", Kate told Tommy. The Harrington case had definitely left a mark on her. "With the helicopters all that's on the line are the costs. The pressure from the Latin American groups will most likely weigh that out. Try calling congressman Santiago, he should have a sympathetic ear for a Hispanic woman in need."

Adam rolled his eyes and Kate shot him an angry look. She knew exactly what he was thinking – _my father… you scratch my back and I scratch yours… before you know it you're walking knee deep through a tar pit…_

"I know it's a sordid topic and Dr. Murphy's Via Dolorosa through the field of politics is so much more heartbreaking, but do you think you could maybe turn your attention back to the body nevertheless? It'll only take a moment, I promise." Rolling her eyes heavenward, Megan spread the tissue once more.

This time Tommy noticed what she was trying to point out. "That there looks odd…"

"That's because it's not human tissue. It's a swab, apparently left in her body after surgery. I've pulled her medical records. She's been complaining about unspecified pain in the stomach region for years. Only recently she went to a new doctor. I've talked to him and he said he was planning to send her to hospital for a more in-depth examination. They would have probably discovered the swab then. Would have cost the hospital responsible for that surgery millions in compensation, had that come out…"

"Quite the motive…", Tommy nodded.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

While Tommy and Adam were learning that there were about a million reasons to kill Martha Ruiz, Jack Epstein, elementary school teacher close to retirement, happily married to his wife Edna for thirty-five years and still dearly in love with her – if she gave him the chance to escape from her affectionate clutches every now and then – encountered a reason why he would never go fishing again.

Sometimes one reason is enough.

He should have known better, really. In hindsight he realized he had reacted like one of his third graders, all instinct, no thinking things through. No impulse control at all. The situation had been full of warning signs, but he had completely ignored them, all of them.

Ah well, hindsight was always easier than foresight.

Everything had started so ordinarily… Ignoring Edna's angry scowl he had decided to make use of his unexpectedly (thank you, lice epidemic in school and what a great moment to be bald!) free day and drive out to his favorite fishing spot.

It was a remote place far away from any of the popular footpaths. His dad had taken him here when he had been a little boy and before him his grandfather had spent time here with his father in his childhood days. In the first few years after his marriage Jack had often dreamt about taking his children here one day but alas, it hadn't been meant to be.

Sometimes, when he was feeling the physical symptoms of his advanced age more intensely than usual or the kids at school had been nasty or Edna had driven him up the walls he was sitting here, at the shore of Scotts Run Lake and got a bit lost in melancholy, thinking that with him a longstanding tradition of the Epstein family would end. He usually stopped those rather wistful thoughts with telling himself that he might have grown older but for the time being he was still very capable of coming here, revisiting not only the spectacular view but also renewing, time and time again, the bond he so strongly felt to his father and grandfather at this place.

Well, after his discovery this whole bonding/escaping/finding peace at the lake thing came to a crashing halt.

He noticed the bag right away. It was a black duffle bag, washed ashore by the waves, caught between a couple of rocks, rising and falling with the movement of the water.

Why didn't he simply ignore it?

Well, because it was so out of place. It didn't belong there, its presence felt like some sort of invasion to a spot Epstein, though public, regarded somewhat as his own.

He could have simply dragged it out of the water with a tree branch and tossed it somewhere out of sight.

But it was a big bag. Very heavy. And it looked suspiciously new, not like the random garbage that usually disturbed the serene beauty of Epstein's hiding place.

Maybe he had watched too many of these true crime shows with Edna, but his first thought was that it could be a bag full of drug money, lost by some gangsters while getting chased by the police… or maybe the drugs themselves?

In a rather dark and rarely visited corner of his mind Epstein vaguely pondered what he would do, should he find some pounds of cocaine. Thanks to the crime shows he knew what one pound of cocaine was worth, not to mention several. He and Edna could travel around the world… whom was he kidding? He could divorce Edna and travel around the world with some pretty blond girl half his age that he'd keep happy with regular shopping tours…

In hindsight it was probably his outlandish daydreaming that led him to throw all caution to the wind and open the ominous bag.

As it turned out, it contained neither drug money nor cocaine.

Epstein called the cops as soon as he was done throwing up.

… … …

"Do you think it's related to the Ruiz/Alba case?", Steven Kershaw asked, handing Megan a pair of scissors.

"It would be totally unprofessional to make any kind of assumptions at this point of the autopsy", Megan snapped. "It is my job to determine if this discovery is connected to any other open case, but if I allowed myself in advance to muse about possible ties it would cloud my judgment. The concept might be new to you, but we here at the Medical Examiner's Office let the facts speak for themselves."

Steven Kershaw picked up a pair of tweezers and pointed at the first object they had retrieved from the black bag. "This hand here seems to have belonged to a young woman. The nails are carefully done but not terribly long… quite typical for people who work in the field of gastronomy. And look here, the calluses near the thumb and pinky, that's pretty typical for waitresses, it comes from carrying trays around all the time… And wasn't Luisa Perez wearing pink nail polish when she was last seen?"

Megan took a step back and looked at him with an expression that wasn't exactly friendly but also not completely disparaging. "You've read the police report!"

"You accidentally had shoved it in the wrong pile so I couldn't find it at first", Steven smiled.

Megan, for the first time ever since Kate Murphy had forced the young man upon her under dozens of not at all veiled threats to punish her severely, should he, too, leave within three days, smiled back at him.

"This hand here is much stronger, it looks male…", Steven said, pointing at another object they had found in the bag. "Could belong to the missing boyfriend, Shawn…"

Sighing, Megan shook her head. "Now you're jumping to conclusions. This is exactly what I've been trying to warn you of. Look, here, what do you think that is?" She tapped her latex-clad index finger against a particular area of the skin.

Now it was Steven's turn to sigh. Yes, she was right, he had overlooked something very important.

Megan took her cell and called Tommy.

"Just wanted to call you", he said. "We've found more duffle bags. More chopped up human remains. I hope you like puzzles. You know yet if we're dealing with Luisa and Shawn?"

"Looks like things are a bit more complicated…"


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

"I'm all ears", Tommy said and Megan took a deep breath to start explaining, but just then Adam Lucas was coming down the muddy path that led to the place where the third duffle bag was found. He was waving a piece of paper and looked very excited.

"Is that Megan on the phone?"

"Yeah, she's got some new findings for us, apparently quite the surprising twist…"

"Put her on speaker!", Adam gasped, a bit out of air from rushing through the steeply rising and falling terrain. He was not exactly an outdoor type of guy.

Tommy arched his eyebrows in surprise but did as he was told.

"Let me guess, you found a male body part that can't belong to Luisa Perez' boyfriend Shawn because it shows signs of old age." Despite the gasping, Adam looked definitely pleased with himself.

"Yes, a hand with solar lentigines and tophaceous gout in three of the fingers. But how in the world…?"

Tommy grinned. Megan had turned her cell's camera off so they could only hear her voice, but he could imagine her face easily. Oh how she disapproved of not being the smartest kid in class.

"The hand most likely belongs to Abraham Zubrisky, aged eighty-one", Adam continued, still enjoying himself very much. He had grown to like Megan, but every now and then it nevertheless felt good getting the upper hand on her. Part of him fleetingly wondered if Steven Kershaw was having a bit of fun right now, too.

"Mr. Zubrisky used to own one of the biggest car dealerships in the city, sold it almost two decades ago, before economy went down the drain, and has made a couple of wise stock market decisions ever since. He and his wife Clara-Anne, about thirty years his junior, went missing a day before Luisa Perez went on her camping trip with her boyfriend Shawn. Interestingly their last detectable action was to transfer 400.000 dollars from their bank account… to an account opened by Luisa Perez only a week earlier. The account was completely cleared a couple of hours after Luisa Perez and her boyfriend disappeared."

Now that was indeed really, really interesting news.

"DNA samples of the Zubriskys are on the way to you as we speak", Adam said. "Of course you'll officially have to confirm that the body parts belong to the Zubriskys, but as far as it looks right now the camping trip that Luisa and her boyfriend embarked on was actually a body disposal trip, necessary after the two assaulted the Zubriskys at their house the night before, forced them to transfer the money onto Luisa Perez' bank account, killed them and hacked them into pieces…"

"And another young man jumping to conclusions…", Megan chimed in with an exaggerated sigh. "What is it with you guys nowadays? Too busy looking good to stop and gather all the facts before making up your minds?"

"Anything you'd like to tell us, Megan?", Tommy grinned. He had known she wouldn't let Adam keep the upper hand for long. Not Dr. Megan Hunt, ME.

"Barring some really flabbergasting DNA results the bag didn't contain remains of Mr. Zubrisky and his wife, it contained remains of Mr. Zubrisky and Luisa Perez. We found a hand that clearly once belonged to a young woman working as a waitress."

Oh yes, it was indeed looking like things were a bit more complicated…

Adam shook his head in complete confusion. "What does that mean? Clara-Anne Zubrisky and Shawn teaming up to get her husband's money, launder it through Luisa Perez bank account and subsequently killing her? And what about the mother and her companion? Why did they have to die?"

"This is not the only possible explanation… but there's one very easy way to determine which way to go…", Tommy said, walking over to the duffle bag they had just fished out of the lake.

"Tommy, what are you doing? You're not contaminating my evidence, are you? Any body parts found at a crime scene are mine, you know that very well!", Megan's snarled.

"Yeah, but all other physical evidence belongs to me. That applies to the duffle bags and thus also to its zipper…" He gestured for one of the CSIs to open the bag. The original plan had been to send it closed as it was to Megan, but time was pressing, there was a killer on the loose with a lot of money in his pockets and this little shortcut would save them a lot of time… good thing the Captain was dead, she'd have kicked his ass for this…

"Tommy, by simply looking into the bag you won't be able to determine anything, all you'll see are chunks of meat, bloated from the water, in the first stages of decay…"

Of course Megan's description was completely accurate. At first Tommy saw nothing but a bloody-blackish mess. But he was definitely not willing to prove Megan right just like that and gestured for the CSI to get a flashlight.

"Tommy?" Megan was grinning, it was clearly perceptible in her voice. "Come on, admit that you don't recognize a thing. Trust me, it won't hurt and I won't hold it against you… for longer than a week or two…"

"You've got one hand most likely stemming from Luisa Perez and one from Abraham Zubrisky, right?", Tommy said, allowing himself a subtle grin of triumph despite the gruesome circumstances. "Well, unless one of them had an additional arm that's mentioned nowhere in the medical records I'm looking at some of the remains of Mrs. Zubrisky. I'm counting four hands in here…"

Four hands.

Together with the two already on Megan's autopsy table that made three bodies.

Three more dead people, in addition to Carlos Alba and Martha Ruiz.

The only one apparently alive and well was the still unidentified Shawn.

They needed to find Shawn.

"What do you think?", Adam asked Tommy. "A fight between accomplices? Perez and Shawn plotting to kill the Zubriskys, then conflict arises over the money and he kills her, too? But why the mother? Was she in on it, too?"

"Are we jumping to conclusions again?", Megan, still on the phone, asked strictly.

Both men rolled their eyes.

"The line is getting bad, Megan", Tommy said, knowing full well that she could clearly hear him and would immediately realize he was lying. Nevertheless he cut the connection, allowing himself a brief, very brief smirk. No, he didn't really want to get back at her. But she wasn't the only one on whom the events of the evening at his place, after the truth about her father's death had come to light had taken a toll.


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

The Zubrisky's mansion showed no signs of forceful entry. The doors and windows were all still intact, the state-of-the-art alarm system had protocolled nothing out of the ordinary. The Zubriskys must have opened the door to whoever had assaulted them on their own.

This, of course, brought up the question to whom they would have opened the door just like that. Tommy and Adam showed the very distraught son and daughter of Abraham Zubrisky a picture of Luisa Perez, but they didn't recognize her. Apparently in the last few years the couple had pretty much stayed at home. Clara-Anne, despite being so much younger than Abraham seemed to have enjoyed being a housewife, giving big dinners for friends and spending most of her days working in her indeed very impressive garden.

The rain was coming down in sheets as they inspected the house and the sky was laden with thick, gray clouds, but it was still easy to imagine how grand the flowerbeds and lawn around the house would look in the sunshine. At the moment, however, it was as if the plants, with their dripping wet, drooping blossoms, were crying for the person who had spent so many hours taking care of them.

DNA comparison had definitely proven that the bag Tommy had opened at the lake contained remains of Clara-Anne Zubrisky.

"At first we resented Clara-Anne because we feared she was a gold digger, with the age difference and all…", the daughter explained between tears. "But dad really loved her and she was so good for him. She lightened up his days… such a caring woman."

"Of course dad complied with her every wish, whatever she desired, it was hers", the son continued. He was not crying, but his voice was trembling with sadness and shock. "The thing was, she didn't seem to desire anything. Of course, the best garden equipment money could buy, yes… those incredibly sharp Japanese pruning shears for example… or an exotic plant… but aside from that? Clara-Anne wasn't interested in jewelry or shopping, she didn't like travelling… I seriously doubt she ever ate in a diner, much less in one in the area where that woman was working."

So, in summary, it was impossible to establish a relationship between Luisa Perez and the Zubriskys. Well, maybe they had known Shawn instead?

The name "Shawn", however, didn't ring a bell either with the Zubrisky children or with any of their neighbors. They had sat Suzie Webb down with a forensic artist to get a composite sketch of him, but her description had been very vague and Brian Wilson's contribution hadn't been exactly helpful either. The sketch looked pretty random.

They didn't find many signs of a struggle in the house. Maybe somebody had tidied up after the attack on the Zubriskys, but luminol testing revealed no removed bloodstains. Two of the dining table chairs showed odd marks, though. Tommy had seen similar ones before.

"Looks like they were tied to the chairs with cable fixers", he told Adam. "Fixers leave very characteristic patterns when you pull at them too hard… not only on the skin, but also on any other softer surface, like the antique varnish on Louis Quatorze furniture for example…. Seems the Zubriskys tried to tear their ties apart in utter panic… but why no blood?"

Trust Megan to come up with a lucid explanation. "Both Abraham and Clara-Anne Zubrisky showed severe burns in the throat area, bruised lips and contused skin on their noses… I think they were forced to drink drain cleaner", she informed the two cops via text message.

Which killed them without any shedding of blood…

In an incredibly painful, gruesome way.

They needed to get their hands on this Shawn. No matter where the case turned, everything seemed to be boiling down to him in the end.

Tommy's cell phone signaled and he expected it to be Megan, who by now was probably working on the other body parts, to reveal more horrible details. It was still not clear how Luisa Perez had died, for example. To his surprise, however, it was Riley.

"You interviewed a guy named Brian Wilson, didn't you?", she asked, rather unabashedly, as was her style.

"You've been reading reports again that don't exactly fall within your remit?" Tommy's lips curled into a smile. "Or have you just been stalking me?"

"I like to keep track on things…", Riley replied, sighing inwardly. She could imagine how he looked right now, the tiny wrinkles in the corners of his mouth as he smiled, amusement twinkling in his eyes… damn, he was a handsome man… she just wished he was a little clearer about what he really wanted… or _whom_, more precisely.

"That's why I regularly visit the pawnshop owners in my area. Just a quick hello, to let them know I keep an eye on them…", she continued.

"You're building up a network of information. One day you'll be going places, Officer Dunn."

Riley could hear the approval in Tommy's voice and straightened her back a little with pride. She didn't only feel attracted to Detective Sullivan's good looks and wit. He was also a damn good cop. Praise from him was a gift.

"One pawnshop owner recently acquired some valuable camping equipment. He showed it to me and I noticed the name "Brian Wilson" sewn into several parts. Didn't he claim to have lent his camping equipment to Luisa Perez?"

Whoa, yet another twist in the story. Tommy rubbed his forehead. This was getting extremely confusing…

"I got a still from the pawnshop's surveillance cam – sending it to you right now."

A second later he had an e-mail from Riley on his smartphone. Tommy opened the attachment, looked at the still and gestured to Adam to come over.

Adam looked at the picture, frowned, unfolded the composite sketch they had made based on Suzie Webb's and Brian Wilson's description and held it right next to it.

"Could be him. Could be Shawn… but the still is far more detailed." If it was him, Suzie and Brian really had been rather bad at describing Luisa's boyfriend. Ah well, they had said they had only seen him a couple of times, usually waiting in his car, wearing a baseball cap and glasses.

Tommy and Adam showed the still to Abraham Zubrisky's children.

And they hit gold.

"That's John Toddlin. His parents used to live down the street before they went bankrupt. They were friends with dad before Mr. Toddlin messed up so badly, business-wise, and they lost the house."

John Toddlin, as it turned out, had booked a flight to Venezuela departing in less than twenty minutes.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

John Toddlin was already sitting in the plane when Tommy and Adam with backup arrived at the airport. Clad in a Hawaiian shirt and beige shorts he was reading a travel guide. When Tommy and Adam came down the aisle he didn't even pay attention to them.

Till Tommy stopped by his seat, put a hand on his shoulder and told him he was under arrest, that is.

From an objective point of view there is no way to run in an airplane, especially not when you have a window seat. It is impossible to escape when two policemen are coming for you. Where do you want to go? All exit routes are effectively blocked.

But when you're under pressure, when you're cornered and you just know that you are only moments away from losing your freedom FOREVER, you don't think objectively. You at least try… Which is exactly what John Toddlin did.

Lashing out at Tommy he grabbed the back of the seat in front of him, hurled himself over it and tried to make a run for the door. Adam lunged forward and tackled him down right in front of it.

"Luisa cooked all of this up!", Toddlin screamed, struggling against the handcuffs while Adam, pinning him down with one knee, read him his rights.

Tommy couldn't help but chuckle at his partner's antics, once their captive was safely tucked away.

"Wow, that looked really cool, you keeping the suspect in check and at the same time, completely unfazed, following protocol… how many stewardess telephone numbers did you get?"

"It's _flight attendant _these days", Adam replied smoothly. "And I would never deliberately use my job to show off and impress pretty women."

"But as occasion arises…", Tommy added, still grinning broadly. "How many?"

"Three!", Adam all but trumpeted, very pleased with himself.

Tommy rolled his eyes in an easy to decipher "oh very young"-expression.

"Hey, just because one of us is missing out on his chance to date a beautiful young woman doesn't mean the other one has to follow suit. I admire your cop skills, but when it comes to your choices in the private sector I'd rather go my own way. No offense."

"None taken", Tommy laughed. "Enjoy the wild days… they sometimes end faster than you think."

Adam laughed, too: "Looks like someone had wise old man flakes for breakfast this morning…" He pushed Tommy and Tommy pushed back. Shoving at each other like teenage school boys, they headed towards the waiting police car.

They figured they could behave a bit immature – they had found the killer.

… … …

Megan delivered the last of her autopsy results to the police station herself. She wanted to actually see the man responsible for the gruesome deaths of so many people…. Carlos Alba, Martha Ruiz, Abraham and Clara-Anne Zubrisky, Luisa Perez…. Why did they all have to die?

Because of money, of course.

According to John Toddlin he had met Luisa Perez at a party. He had told her his life's story, from riches to rags, and she had asked him if he wanted to get back to riches again. When he asked her how in the world he should do that she suggested by making use of his old contacts to the world of the higher earners.

Toddlin was very insistent: Luisa Peres chose the Zubriskys as victims, accompanied John to their house, forced Abraham Zubrisky to transfer his money to an account Luisa had specifically opened for that purpose, made the couple drink the drain cleaner and helped John to hide the bodies in Toddlin's car. The next day they went on their official camping trip with the idea to chop the Zubrisky's bodies into pieces in a remote cabin that had once belonged to John's father. As she got out of the car Luisa accidentally tripped and fell, fatally hitting her head on a tree trunk.

Tears in his eyes, Toddlin asserted that he had had no other choice but to dispose of her body, too. All in all, he repeated time and time again, he was pretty much a victim himself, a mere follower, while Luisa had been the driving force. What had happened to Martha Ruiz and Carlos Alba he couldn't explain – maybe a thief had coincidentally broken into the apartment or something like that?

"Excuse me, are you working the case with the body parts in the duffle bags?" A man in his early sixties suddenly approached Megan on her way to the interrogation room, where she was planning to watch what Adam and Tommy were making out of Toddlin's version of the events that had led to the death of five people.

A bit wary of the stranger, Megan nodded.

"I think I've seen your face on the news before", he said. "You're Dr. Hunt, the famous Medical Examiner. My name is Ricardo Perez – Martha was my ex-wife and Luisa was my daughter."

"What can I do for you, Mr. Perez?", Megan asked, still cautious. Granted, they were standing in the middle of a police station and as a visitor Ricardo Perez surely had been thoroughly searched, but still… you never knew with grieving family members.

"He is spreading LIES about my poor Luisa! He says she murdered people for their money! Never would she have done something like that! Never!"

A few years ago, right after her shift to forensics, Megan would probably have told Mr. Perez to go home and let the authorities do their job. By now she had learned. The feeling that an offender was dragging a loved one's name into the dirt could grow so strong, it could wipe out all rational thought. She really didn't need Mr. Perez taking the law in his own hands on top of all the other hardship that was already connected with this case. He looked like someone capable of bringing a gun to court.

"The back of your daughter's head was bashed in. Toddlin claims by a tree trunk. I indeed found traces of wood in the wound, but it was industrially varnished maple wood, typical for baseball bats. The spot where Toddlin says Luisa died is populated with ash trees, not maple trees. I think John Toddlin made your daughter's acquaintance with the sole purpose to get her to open up a bank account in her name, but for him to access. Would explain the false name he gave her. Luisa once mentioned to Suzie that Shawn had trouble with his ex-wife. There is no ex-wife – that story could have served as an explanation why she needed to open the bank account. He killed the Zubrisky's, transferred the money to the bank account, killed Luisa, emptied the bank account… Your ex-wife Martha and her companion probably had to die because according to Suzie Martha had once visited her daughter without announcing it and thus saw his face properly. In my opinion he wanted to get rid of all possible witnesses. Mr. Alba had very bad luck that day."

Ricardo Perez looked at Megan with a face whiter than any sheet she had ever seen. "My daughter's head was bashed in with a baseball bat? My beautiful daughter…" He started shaking violently, then suddenly his knees buckled and he sank to the ground.

Megan had to perform CPR on him.

"Maybe you should have been a little sparser with the details", Tommy mumbled as the ambulance with Mr. Perez rushed off.

He hadn't really meant to criticize her, but Megan turned on her heels and marched off, slamming her car's door in his face as he hurried after her. When she arrived at her apartment all she wanted was an evening with Lacey, a bit of innocent talk about her new school, how she liked her teachers, what she thought of the other students.

The apartment, however, was empty. No Lacey, just a message from her ex-husband on the answering machine. Lacey had been invited to a party, apparently by someone very cool and popular… was it okay if she didn't come visiting her this weekend?

Sighing, Megan poured herself a glass of wine. Part of her wanted to call Tommy, talk to him… about Mr. Perez… about other things… especially the night she had come to him after she had found out the truth about her father's death… but then she just poured herself some more wine.


	8. non scholae, sed vitae

**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement. **

_**~ non scholae, sed vitae ~**_

The building was painted in bright yellow. It was surrounded by towering trees. _Ashes or oaks?_ Megan wondered fleetingly but couldn't quite bring up the concentration to decide. It was a glorious day. Warm sunshine from a steely blue sky was making the yellow paint on the building's walls glow, creating a nice contrast with the thick green of the tree tops. One area of the premises was apparently dedicated to gardening. Flowers of all sorts were swaying in the soft breeze, red and yellow tulips mostly, but also daisies, petunias… there even was a compound for rabbits in one corner.

Furry little animals in black and white, brown and grey were usually hopping around in it. Carefree creatures solely on this earth to entertain their visitors with their cuteness and funny antics. Today, however, they were hiding in their stall, cowering in the corners, pressed flat to the ground, shivering, listening, their tiny hearts beating madly with fear.

The hiding rabbits aside, the whole site looked so deceivingly peaceful, it was obscene.

Granted there were also the police cars, the ambulances, the cops, the EMTs, the barriers, the throngs of horrified people, the outside broadcasting vans, the reporters… the helicopter doing its rounds over their heads… the giant noise level.

To Megan, however, all these elements that clearly indicated that any peace this place ever offered had gone straight to hell since 9.14 am this morning, were nothing but a blur, barely perceptible. The screams, the sirens, the cops yelling at each other, the reporters doing their updates… it was all white noise. All Megan could focus on was the building itself, its rather uncomplicated one-storied structure and clean layout. Lots of big windows, designed to let as much sunlight in as possible. The architect had clearly been aiming at creating a place that supported mingling with each other, keeping social contacts, concentrating on tasks and enjoying all aspects of life – nature, knowledge, friendships.

Who could ask for more when it came to the design of an elementary school?

All of this, however, had not prevented someone from turning it into an inferno between 9.14 and 9.17 am.

Three minutes.

THREE MINUTES.

"Are you sure you're up to this, Megan?", Tommy asked.

"It's the only thing I can do to help", she said.

Steven Kershaw approached them, carrying Megan's equipment.

"I don't want you to go in there with us." Megan all but yanked the equipment from his hands.

"But that's what I was hired for!"

"There's a white line along your lips, beads of sweat on your forehead, your hands are trembling, your gait is unsteady – this is turning your stomach, you're showing severe signs of stress. I can't have you throw up in there and contaminate my crime scene." Megan's voice was loud enough to make several cops in the vicinity look up and listen.

Steven Kershaw took a deep breath and bit his lips. "You don't look terribly well either, Dr. Hunt. Who'll hold the barf bag for you if I'm not around?"

"If you were really as brave as your words want to demonstrate, you'd look me in the eyes while insulting me", Megan hissed.

She was right. Kershaw was staring at the ground, shoulders hunched, all but shuffling his feet.

"I'm sure we'll need all extra pairs of eyes we can get", Adam Lucas chimed in just then.

Tommy nodded in agreement. "Let's go, the faster the bodies are out of here the faster we've got them identified and the faster the parents know for sure."

Not that any of them was looking forward to the task of telling them. But they also were all very aware of the fact that the not knowing was even more torture.

The first few corridors showed no trace of what had happened. They were deserted, yes, but that was all. The walls were decorated with framed children's drawings, show cases displayed examples of various projects and field trips. One class had only recently visited a center for recycling technology, another had gotten to know the daily chores of an organic farmer. The cases contained tiny models of the farmer's tasks – him milking cows, feeding pigs, growing plants… it was not always easy to decipher what exactly he was doing, not all kids were talented with modeling clay, the pigs looked, truth to be told, more like pink sheep, but the show cases surely were far more interesting than a lot of stuff Megan had seen at professional museums.

She wondered if the maker of the little pink sheep was still alive.

All the bodies were located in and directly in front of Mr. Ballantine's classroom. He had taught third graders and had just been in the process of letting the kids back into the room. Now his body was lying on the threshold, shot by a yet unknown attacker.

Dead, too, was Mrs. Morris, who apparently had happened to lead a group of second graders past the class room when the shooting erupted.

It seemed Mrs. Westham, the third adult victim, had heard the shots and come running to see what was going on. Odd, though, considering that the school trained a proactive lock down procedure in the case of school shootings with high emphasis on getting the kids away from the source of danger as fast and far as possible. Maybe she had just heard strange noises and hurried here to check what was going on.

Two children had died inside Mr. Ballantine's class room, one was lying at the far end of the corridor.

It wasn't clear yet what had driven the attacker away. Maybe the ringing alarm bells, maybe the approaching police sirens. The first officers had arrived on the spot at 9.18, two minutes after the attack had been reported. At 9.21 it had become clear that the killer had left the scene. How exactly he had managed to escape was still unclear, but there was a forced open door by the gym. As of now, the attacker was still on the loose.

What a goddamn horrible day.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement.**

Megan walked from one body to the next. She started with the adults.

On the one hand this surely had practical reasons - the adults were all lying more or less together in a half-circle in front of Mr. Ballantine's classroom. Their positions indicated what they had been doing at the moment the shooter got them - Mr. Ballantine leading his class into the room after having breakfast together as a practical lesson in healthy nutrition, Mrs. Morris coming down the corridor with her students after an hour of gardening. Her clothes still carried traces of soil and a leaves were clinging to her left pant leg.

Mrs. Westham had probably run towards the source of the noise from the direction of the main entrance hall. The exact order of events was yet unknown, interviewing the kids right now was out of question, the other adults in the building - teachers, janitors, school secretaries - had only heard the shots and the screams of the children. As far as the police could tell at the moment they hadn't seen anything.

On the other hand Megan, by concentrating on the adults first, was buying herself time. The longer she delayed going over to the kids, the higher the chances she would be able to process them in the calm, professional manner that was necessary to, in the end, bring them justice.

No one blamed her for postponing looking at the children. In fact they all secretly hoped she would take her time... as much as possible. The kids, so much they knew already, had all been between seven and nine years old. They had only just started living, exploring life, making the first steps into the world and discovering what it could offer. There never really was an appropriate age to die, but seven, eight or nine was definitely so much too early, it was beyond words.

"Fatal chest wound", Megan said, getting up from crouching by Mr. Ballantine's side. "Are you listening, Steven? Last time I checked it was your job to note down my first impression of the victim. If you can't stomach this, just like I told you you couldn't, get the hell out of here."

Steven had indeed been staring off into the distance, eyes trained on the show cases. He was probably contemplating the fate of the exhibits' makers, just like Megan had done only moments ago, and, lost in thought, had not written anything down.

"Could you check the cupboard underneath the first show case, please?", he asked softly.

Now they saw it, too: A piece of blue flannel shirt was peeking out of it, caught between door and frame.

They all froze.

Tommy threw Megan a strict glance, indicating with a turn of his head that she needed to get out of the line of fire. He and Adam both drew their guns. Megan grabbed Steven by the arm and dragged him out of harm's way. Quiet as mice, Tommy and Adam approached the cupboard. They used sign language to count to three together and then Tommy lunged forward, yanking the cupboard's door open.

At first they saw nothing but more flannel. Then they recognized a bit of jeans. And only after that their eyes recognized the shape of a little boy, cowering in the impossible small storage space the cupboard provided. The kid wasn't showing any reaction to the sudden opening of the door or their presence. He had his eyes screwed shut and was not moving at all.

"Oh my god!", Adam yelled and reached forward to help the boy out of his makeshift refuge. Only then the child suddenly became alive, very much alive actually. He started screaming at the top of his lungs and violently lashed out at Adam's hand, leaving a deep scratch on the skin of its back.

"Hey... hey. Don't worry, we're the good guys", Tommy interfered, making sure to crouch far enough away from the boy that he wouldn't feel threatened. "Nobody is going to harm you, trust me. Look, we're closing the door again."

The moment the child found himself surrounded by darkness once more it fell silent.

"We need to get the bodies out of here. Covering won't do. Get a psychologist in here. And find the parents! They must be out there somewhere!" Undecidedly Tommy kept his eyes trained on the cupboard with the boy. He couldn't just do nothing and wait for the shrink to arrive, could he? Even if it only was a couple of minutes. The kid would hear them moving the bodies around... and in the darkness the pictures in his head would probably be worse than what was really going on.

He crouched down by the cupboard again. "You're right to be upset with us", he told the boy through the closed door. "We were pretty rude, not introducing ourselves, harassing you like that... my name is Tommy. I'm a police man."

Megan realized what he was doing. She touched his shoulder, squeezed it gently, then quietly, through sign language, oversaw the removal of the bodies. A psychologist arrived very quickly, but he didn't send Tommy away. Instead he carefully guided him through the one-sided conversation, encouraged him to touch on certain topics and waved his hand whenever Tommy was heading in the wrong direction.

Outside the entrance door Megan bumped into the deeply distraught principal of the school. "Where are the boy's parents? Why aren't they already here? Their son needs them!"

"The description is very vague...", he said.

"Are you kidding me? Out there must be four sets of parents! Three are about to get the worst news parents can possibly get, one will be probably thanking whatever God they believe or don't believe in. They've got to know! The boy is wearing a flannel shirt, that's pretty characteristic!"

"There are only three sets of parents out there... I think the boy in the flannel shirt is Joshua Ballantine, Martin Ballantine's son. The parents are divorced; the mother is living in Europe."

Megan had to turn her face away... away from the principal, the school, the throng of people buzzing about... the son had seen his father die... how much worse could it get?


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement.**

Megan got back to the actual scene of the shooting just in time to see the door of the cupboard swing open. It seemingly moved on its own - Joshua must have given it a push from the inside. When they finally could see him, however, he was unmoving again, knees drawn to his chest, arms wrapped around his legs, face pressed against his upper thighs.

The psychologist nodded at Tommy, who took a deep breath. "Let's get out of here, buddy, shall we?" Cautiously he reached into the cupboard. Joshua still wasn't moving, but at least he didn't start screaming or lashing out again.

"I got you", Tommy said. "It's okay now, you're safe." He sneaked his arms around the boy and gently lifted him out of the cupboard. The moment Joshua was in his arms the child turned around and buried his face against Tommy's shoulder. He started shivering violently. Tommy hugged him more tightly.

"You're not alone", he whispered into his ear. "You're not alone in this."

For a fleeting moment Megan felt reminded of her dad, of the way he had held her when she had fallen with her bike or had just been distraught about something. She also suddenly realized that Tommy would have been a good father. A lousy husband probably, but a good father. It was somewhat sad that he didn't have any children of his own. For the briefest of moments she wondered what their child would have looked like, had they decided to stay together and actually found a family at some point.

Blue eyes, red hair... and freckles.

Never meant to be. Even without the debacle on the evening after she had found out the truth about her father's death.

Tommy turned around to look at Adam. Adam nodded once, briefly and gravely. _I've got this covered._

Accompanied by the psychologist Tommy then walked off to carry the child to one of the waiting ambulances. "The doctors would like to take a look at you", Megan heard him tell Joshua. "But don't worry, I'll go with you. We'll wait for your mom together." At the mentioning of his mother the boy stirred and clung to Tommy even harder.

"I'll get you the results of the autopsies as fast as possible", Megan told Adam. As she headed towards the building's main exit door she passed the principal again, still looking incredibly pale and shocked.

Well, anything else would have been quite odd, wouldn't it?

While opening the door she heard Adam yell: "What the hell do you mean, the surveillance cams were turned off during the time of the attack?"

Megan paused, continued listening.

"I myself turned them off… there was some odd malfunction… I thought a funny smell was coming from the main control board. I figured it was some kind of electrical short and wanted to call a technician… but then the shooting started…"

Megan knew exactly what Adam was thinking – this reeked of manipulation.

Well, not untypical for a school shooting. Some attackers simply grabbed a gun and started firing, completely blinded by rage, paired with utter desperation and complete disregard for other people's pain. That's what the word "meng-âmok", the root of the modern English word "amok" referred to - _mad with uncontrollable rage._ But lots of cases were known where shooters had meticulously planned and prepared their deed, acting not on sudden impulse but on cold fury, usually bottled up over years.

"We'll send you a CSI to look at the control board and check if anyone tampered with it", Megan heard Adam say. Yes, a good point to start. And she and the others would begin working on the bodies now. Kate had cancelled all her appointments to help.

Together they'd find the bastard who had done this.

As it turned out, she was wrong.

… … …

"What? What did you just say? I'm still at the hospital, Josh is okay but deeply shaken, they've given him a sedative and he's sleeping right now…"

Tommy didn't need to spill it out. His acting Captain that had finally been instated for the time being would be less than pleased to find out that he was sitting around doing nothing while the press was coming down on her to present the shooter.

NOW.

"You've managed to establish a connection with the boy and he is an important witness. What if he wakes up and has something to say? Maybe he can even identify the killer. I'd say your presence by his side is crucial to the case", Megan said.

Tommy took a deep breath. "Thank you." He paused again, trying to order his thoughts. Being so close to Josh, to his pain and despair, had shaken him, too. "Now tell me again what you said about the shooter. What did you find?"

"_Shooters_. Plural. We're dealing with more than one. Martin Ballantine was shot twice with a 9 mil bullet, first in the shoulder, then, fatally, in the chest. Carolyn Westham and Christine Morris were both shot with 10 mil bullets. While Carolyn Westham died of a single headshot, Christine Morris was hit multiple times. Sally King and Jackie Hobbs, the boy and the girl that died in Mr. Ballantine's classroom, were killed with 9 mil bullets. Stan Everly, the boy who died in the corridor, was hit by a 10 mil projectile. To me it looks like all three children died from stray bullets while the adults were shot deliberately."

"Maybe the shooters explicitly wanted to target the teachers…", Tommy mused.

"Though it's odd that they walked through half the building before shooting", Megan replied. "They could have much more easily opened fire on the sports coaches practicing with classes out on the soccer and hockey fields. There was also a group sitting in the outdoor classroom by the school garden. And inside the building they walked past at least three rooms full of kids and teachers. The cafeteria would have been an option, too…"

Tommy knew where this was heading. "The shooting took place in front of Mr. Ballantine's classroom. It was very likely that he would be there, but both Mrs. Morris' and Mrs. Westham's presences were a coincidence. Could be that all of this was about him… I'll have Adam check if any former student was holding a grudge against him or if he had trouble with any parents."

"And I'll see what else Mr. Ballantine's body can tell us…" As Megan hung up the phone she thought she could hear a door opening on Tommy's side of the line, but the connection was already cut before she could inquire any further. Probably a doctor checking on the boy.

Again, Megan was wrong.

"Riley", Tommy said, surprised. Since Josh was sleeping it was just the two of them. He could call her by her first name.

"I just thought I'd keep you company. I've heard Josh's mom won't arrive before tomorrow afternoon." Only now Tommy noticed that Riley had brought a bag with her. She opened it and produced food and coffee.


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement.**

"We need results, Kate. And as long as we don't have results we need to feed the media something else that keeps them occupied. Nobody needs another gun law discussion." Dan Russell was insistent. So was Kate Murphy. Classical Mexican standoff. Just without the sombreros.

"I'm not going to disclose any personal information about the physical state of the deceased children to you that is not directly related to the case. You're not going to tell that hyena from the broadcasting station that the last thing _little Sally_ ever ate was cornflakes with bananas - I made that up, by the way. Asking me to reveal the stomach content and the children's old injuries and scars is disgusting. None of the kids showed any signs of maltreatment, let alone abuse. Your TV buddies won't fabricate lurid headlines and a gonzo story out of _little Stan's_ five year old broken elbow! I made that up, too, by the way. The parents have just lost their kids! There's no way I'm going to let you use dead children for any of your political power plays!"

"Are you done?" The District Attorney reacted to Kate's rant with nothing but a patronizing smile. "The determination you demonstrate regarding your job is a definite plus. I'm absolutely confident it'll show in the upcoming debates and it'll transfer greatly to the public. Unfortunately your greatest strength is also your greatest weakness. You act on impulse and emotion instead of cost-benefit calculation and long-term planning. Just like you left me high and dry the evening at the Royal Hotel where you were supposed to meet all the important people but chose to pursuit your own _adventures_ instead."

"I apologized for that", Kate snarled.

"Simply apologizing won't do, Kate. I had to do a lot of explaining afterwards... your political career was_ this _close..." Russell actually made the respective gesture. Kate felt the urge to bite his fingers off "...THIS close to being over before it had even started."

"And you saved it at the last minute. My knight in shining armor", she replied through clenched teeth.

"Your sarcasm is totally inappropriate, Kate. This is your chance to make up for your blunder at the Royal. Nobody wants to publish a story that makes the parents look bad. All I'm asking for are a few tiny bits that'll keep everyone happy till we've got the killer."

Kate stifled a sigh. Everything in her screamed at her to give the bastard the kick in the butt that he deserved. But on the other hand... she wanted to _change _things. Once she'd be settled firmly into office... She reached for one of the children's files on her desk.

Dan smiled. A broad, stomach turning cat-that-just-swallowed-the-canary smile, just this side of a triumphant smirk. Kate looked at the letter opener right next to the heap of files. Maybe she could say he accidentally fell...?

Probably not with Megan doing the autopsy and Tommy and Adam in charge of the investigation...

The ringing of the telephone saved Kate from both, murder and compromising her values. Russell's cell phone signaled simultaneously and they both took their calls at the same time.

For a moment the two of them listened intently.

"Saved by the bell", Russell chuckled as he disconnected the call.

"Yes, looks like we've got a suspect. Should be food enough for the hyenas."

... ... ...

Marvin Moorehouse had been an assistant janitor at Leo Ryan Elementary School. A school dropout with a pretty thick juvenile record file, closed after his 18th birthday, but the press found out about it in no time anyway. Apparently Martin Ballantine had caught the young man smoking marijuana in one of the school's garden sheds, which had caused him to lose his job and, subsequently, lose custody of his new born son from his teenage girlfriend who had RUN directly after birth. The child was at a foster family now, authorities were discussing adoption options with Marvin.

He owned both a Glock and a Beretta.

Maybe they were dealing with one shooter after all – chances were he had used both weapons at the same time, like in some Quentin Tarantino movie, the hero shooting his way to redemption with both hands…

The only problem was that nobody could identify Moorehouse and without the video footage…

The kids' witness statements were inconclusive and it was driving Adam nuts. "Some claim they saw two men – some say it was only one – he was dressed in black, he wore a clown mask, a Zorro mask, a Halloween mask… the teachers are not much better. Three people say they "think" they saw someone in the vicinity of the backdoor, two "might" have seen a stranger by the main entrance but they are "not sure" and didn't pay any attention because of the school's security system. The only thing at least the kids agree on is that there was shouting right before the shooting, something along the lines of _"No!"_ and _"Don't!"_ … very surprising…"

"Imagine the situation", Tommy, still stuck at the hospital, said. The psychologist had sat with Josh, who still wasn't talking, for about an hour, while Tommy had taken a shower at the hospital's facilities. Now it was his turn again. Riley had promised to bring him lunch later.

"Two groups of kids coming from some sort of an excursion, even though they hadn't left the premises – one group had a good time in the garden, the other had fun making breakfast with all that healthy stuff. They were excited, they were talking among themselves… then suddenly all hell breaks loose. Having your teacher and classmates die on you, so suddenly, from one moment to the next, it's incredibly hard to deal with… they try to put into perspective what they witnessed – through the only context they know, TV. Pretty much the same goes for the adults. They all want to help… what they experienced is horrible… their mind plays tricks on them. They don't even do this deliberately."

"Kids of that age know movies in which killers wear masks?" Lucas shook his head at the poor parenting, but Tommy's reasoning did make sense.

"We'll haul Moorehouse's ass in anyway", Adam decided.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

"Look, why don't you do all of us a favor and confess. This would look really good with the jury and maybe the DA will take a deal into consideration. They are threatening to take your child away – that does take a toll on a person. A certain thirst for revenge is understandable…"

Adam felt like he was gagging on his own words. A deal with the bastard that killed six innocent people, three of them children? Over his dead body… but since cops were allowed to lie in interrogation… he could promise Moorehouse the moon. Nothing forced him to keep any of it.

Unfortunately Moorehouse's lawyer was well aware of that.

"Don't say anything, Marvin", he advised his client again.

"I didn't do it", Moorehouse stated, just like he had many times before, staring at the table in front of him, tattooed fingers clenched into fists, his jaw set. Barely contained violence in human form. Like a million other thugs Adam had interrogated. It was a good thing they had taken the child away from him. Away from his father the boy maybe had a vague chance left to become something different than a danger to society.

"You don't have an alibi, Marvin, and you own guns that can be loaded with exactly the bullets that were found at the crime scene."

"I told you I sold the guns. 's not good having guns in the house when there's a kid. And I needed the money for rent", Moorehouse snarled while his lawyer was hectically trying to shut him up.

"This would sound a lot more believable if you could tell us the name of the buyer…" Adam did his best not to smirk.

"For heaven's sake, it was some random guy on the street!" Moorehouse's barely contained anger was about to become everything but contained.

"For all we know, Marvin, you could have used the guns to shoot up the school and then thrown them away. That's what it looks like to me…"

A knock on the door of the interrogation room interrupted Adam. Outside a colleague from the 17th district was waiting.

"Got something that might interest you", he said. "Some idiot tried robbing a grocery store on Federal Street this morning. Running out of the shop he collided with a junky bagging on the sidewalk, fell, broke his arm in several places. Was too squeamish to run off nevertheless… we picked him up from the pavement just like that."

"Good for you", Adam said, not sure where this was heading.

"Here comes the interesting part – he had two guns, a Beretta and a Glock. Claims he bought them a months ago from yours truly Marvin Moorehouse."

Damn it. The bastard had told the truth. Granted, he still had no alibi, but the guns definitely hadn't been in his possession anymore at the time of the shooting. It looked like he was actually telling the truth. Taking a deep breath, Adam walked back into the interrogation room.

… … …

Tommy, meanwhile, was caught up in an interrogation of his own. Both Josh's doctors and social services had given them the green light so now he and the psychologist were in the process of trying very cautiously to get a witness statement from the boy.

"You were in the school garden with Mrs. Morris and the other kids, weren't you?", the psychologist said. "Would you like to paint me a picture of what you did in the garden?" He had explained to Tommy that they would try to approach the actual shooting incident gradually, step-by-step, starting with less troublesome memories…

Or so they thought.

Still not saying a word, Joshua at least nodded. He took his time to paint the requested picture. It seemed kind of odd to Tommy that he used so many dark colors, black, gray, brown, instead of yellow, red and green, but well, maybe his distraught state of mind influenced his view on the world and he didn't feel like using brighter colors. The psychologist guessed what Tommy was thinking and nodded in a _don't worry_-gesture. "Trauma makes you remember in darker colors. Totally common phenomenon", he said.

After about twenty minutes Joshua handed Tommy the picture. Tommy looked at it… looked at it some more… turned it upside down… "I'm sorry, is this a common phenomenon, too? To me it looks as if he painted a funeral."

"Maybe he misunderstood and drew what he thinks will lay in the future", the psychologist mused.

"But this does look like the school garden to me…", Tommy replied, shaking his head. "Look here, that's the rabbits' stable… and Mrs. Morris did wear a brown skirt that morning."

"He's mixing past and future, placing the upcoming burial of his teacher in the environment he knows, the school garden…" The psychologist handed Josh a new piece of paper. "That's a very nice picture, Josh, but show us what you really did in the school garden."

"But we did bury Snowball. She was murdered." Joshua looked at the two men with huge eyes, apparently not sure why they first asked and then didn't believe him. He pressed his lips together and fell silent again.

Tommy grabbed his phone and made a couple of calls. Ten minutes later he knew that Josh was telling the truth regarding the burial. According to the other kids in Mrs. Morris class Josh had asked her the day before if they could bury his cat, Snowball, in the school garden since he and his father lived in an apartment with no garden, just a balcony. He didn't say what had happened to the cat, but Mrs. Morris had apparently seen the whole issue as a teachable moment that would introduce the kids to the topic of death and having to say good-bye. She planned the whole funeral with the kids, the flowers, the words they could say at the gravesite… she even had them choose a song to sing. The kids had apparently dealt well with the whole procedure.

Who could have known they would so soon encounter death in an even more direct way?

Frowning, Tommy speed dialed Megan. Maybe it was nothing, but… "I need you to carry out an exhumation and another autopsy…", he told her as soon as she answered the phone.


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

"So you're telling me there's nothing wrong at all with the school's surveillance cam?", Adam asked the CSI's specialist for electrical appliances.

"I've checked everything several times, it's working perfectly", the CSI confirmed.

"So I only imagined the malfunction? The funny smell?" The principal sank down on a chair and buried his face in his hands.

"Is there any sign someone tampered with the mechanism so that it looked as if there was a malfunction?" Adam wondered if he should walk over to the principal and put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, but that was more Tommy's thing, a wise old cop veteran's gesture. Adam preferred picturing himself as a young lion.

The CSI shook his head. "None that I could find any traces of. No substance smeared on any surface that could have mimicked the smell of a short circuit, no suspicious entry in the system's protocol…"

"What did I do?", the principal muttered. "What in the world did I do? If I hadn't switched the system off, we would have identified the shooter by now!"

"You couldn't know what would happen…", Adam replied, a bit absentmindedly. Outside in the school garden Steven Kershaw was standing next to a huge bush with blue blossoms. He was holding a shovel in his hands.

Tommy had told Adam he wanted the Ballantine's cat exhumed, so no surprise regarding the shovel, but Steven wasn't using it. He was standing upright, head bowed, looking at the ground for a long moment. Just when Adam decided he needed to walk over to him and check if everything was alright or if he had discovered something, Steven nodded at the ground in a firm, respective way, took the shovel and started digging.

Adam couldn't help but think that that man was a bit of an oddball. Ah well, maybe it took an oddball to survive being Megan Hunt's MI for longer than three days. She still hadn't bitten his head off and he hadn't marked the door to her office with lamb blood before leaving the country and burning his passport.

… … …

"How's the autopsy going?", Tommy asked Megan.

"The cat was definitely murdered – strangulated with a thin wire."

"Couldn't that have been an accident? Maybe she got caught in a chain-link fence or something?" Tommy was speaking in a low voice. Josh had only just fallen asleep. His mother still hadn't arrived; apparently she had gotten stuck at an airport during a layover.

"I'm not that familiar with feline murder victims, but judging from the clear strangulation mark around her neck I'd say no. And there are also the additional post mortem injuries to her paws… those definitely weren't an accident."

"Post mortem injuries?"

"If I'm not completely mistaken somebody nailed that cat to a wall or a door after its death. There were traces of paint and wood in the wounds…."

"Did you just say _nailed_?" Tommy was glad he hadn't put Megan on speaker and Josh was sleeping. Maybe the boy didn't know that particular detail of his cat's death… but he had known she had been murdered…

"This school shooting might not be a typical school shooting after all, Tommy… I want to see the Ballantine's place."

Tommy knew there was no arguing with Megan when she was using this particular tone of voice. "Mind if I send Adam along? Just to make it look like the police was in charge of investigating the crime, you know? It _is _important to keep up appearances…"

Megan just laughed.

… … …

A short time later Adam, Megan and Steven were at the Ballantine's apartment. They found nail marks on the outer side of the entrance door, the distances between them matching the width between Snowball's paws. Someone had definitely nailed the dead cat to that door.

What were they dealing with here?

The moment Adam opened the door, Megan walked straight ahead, taking in her surroundings in her usual unabashed manner. Good, that gave Adam some time to let himself fall back and have a private conversation with Steven.

"You paid that cat your respect before you dug it out, didn't you?", he mumbled.

Steven tried very hard to hide his shock at Adam's question, but his face was an open book. Adam made a mental note that playing poker with him should be fun.

"And if that was so?", Steven finally asked, apparently trying to sound totally cool and unmoved.

"You'd be at my mercy because stuff like that is to Dr. Hunt what blood in the water is to a shark. She'd remind you of it from now till Judgment Day."

"The next football pizza is on me?", Steven suggested, almost sheepishly.

"I take mine with anchovies and extra cheese, thank you", Adam grinned.

"Boys? Maybe you'd like to take a look at this? Unless of course you've just cracked the case and "football pizza" is a code word for "we've got the bastard".

Megan was waiting for them in what appeared to be Martin Ballantine's study. She was holding a box in her hand. It contained letters. Dozens and dozens of letters – some just notes, hastily scribbled, others page long declarations of burning desire and love.

"I just skipped through them but it seems what started out as a love affair over time turned into an ugly stalker case… this here are some pretty harsh threats…"

"Maybe there's more on his computer…" Steven switched on Ballantine's PC and hacked his password in no time. A few minutes later they were looking at the last e-mails Martin Ballantine had received prior to his death.

"_I'm going to kill both of you_?", Megan read, rather shocked. "_And I'm going to start with that bitch's bastard, your goddamn son. I'm going to take his life, right before your eyes!_"

"And they are all from one and the same person", Steven said. "Carolyn Westham. Beyond all doubt."

Carolyn Westham… the teacher without a class… the teacher they had thought had run to Ballantine's aid after hearing turmoil…

"And he took her threats very seriously", Adam said, picking up a paper from Ballantine's desk.

"This here says he bought a gun a week ago. A Beretta."


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

_**A/N: I'm off to a business trip for a week, so no updates till next Saturday, sorry... **_

Martin Ballantine had owned a Beretta.

They checked Carolyn Westham's apartment and files, but according to all records she hadn't possessed a weapon.

In contrast to her best friend Christine Morris, who happened to have lived only a block away. The two had spent a lot of time together. Colleagues described them as "close as sisters". Morris had owned a Glock.

Oh, for heaven's sake.

Megan rushed back to the ME's office and checked Ballantine's and Morris' hands for gun residue.

The results were positive.

Adam, in the meantime, checked what Carolyn Westham had been doing in the school at the time of the shooting, which class she had been supposed to teach… it turned out she had been on sick leave for the past month. She shouldn't have been in school at all.

With that new information CSI's ballistics experts looked at the various bullet entry angles again, combined them with what the blood spatter was telling them – and came to a horrifying scenario: Ballantine shot Westham. Morris shot at Ballantine and injured him. He returned fire, injured Morris, she shot back, hit him fatally this time but he managed to fire one last bullet and killed her. The kids got hit by stray bullets exchanged in between.

But why? Why in the world had Ballantine shot Westham? What had happened between the three adults that had cost them and three kids their lives?

And where the hell had the guns gone after the shooting?

Adam reported the new findings to Tommy, who, in turn, called Megan. The night following the revelation regarding her father's death and the almost lethal encounter with Captain Martin still hovered around them like an elephant in the room. They needed to talk, yes, but he nevertheless needed her input on the case now, her ability to see things from a different perspective.

"Maybe you should take a look at the material from the surveillance cam…", Megan suggested. "And get that lip reader we used for your case…"

Tommy was, mildly put, astounded. Hadn't she been listening? There was no video material! This was not like Megan, not at all.

"Doesn't it seem a little too convenient to you that on the day of a shooting the surveillance system was turned off? For, as it turned out, no good reason? And isn't it odd that two of the three victims walked around armed? Teachers are not allowed to carry guns at school. Yes, after the Sandy Hook disaster they're discussing to allow it, but for now… What if…"

She let the sentence trail off, knowing full well that Tommy would be able to connect the dots. They thought alike, still, after all those years and everything that had happened… so why hadn't he… Megan forbade herself to think about the evening at his apartment, when things had gone from so right to so wrong in a moment's notice.

Tommy, on the other end of the line, cursed. How the hell could they have failed to see this? He hectically said good-bye to Megan and called Adam.

… … …

"Denying it is pointless", Adam calmly told the principal. "We already found the missing video material when we searched your office. And we've seen it. Carolyn Westham had threatened Martin Ballantine for weeks. In the end she killed the family cat and told him she'd do the same to his boy. When she unexpectedly showed up in school, probably just to try and talk to him, Ballantine feared for his child's safety, yelled at his son to hide and shot her – he was in too much of a panic to notice that she wasn't armed. Christine Morris knew her friend wasn't armed and tried to stop Ballantine. When she opened fire on him, however, he completely lost it, no surprise considering he had just killed a former lover, and fired back. Mrs. Morris defended herself… and in the end we had six dead bodies."

The principal started crying.

"Question is, why did you remove the guns right after the shooting?", Adam continued. "It's on tape, too. The kids were way too shocked and confused, they didn't understand what you were doing and when you told them there had been a shooter they believed you and told us the same thing."

The principal didn't reply.

"We checked the other teachers. Most of them own guns and once we leaned on them a bit it turned out you had encouraged them to arm themselves and carry a gun to school. _Directive 24 _you called it. You even had a conference about that topic, making very clear that you'd welcome every additional weapon in the house."

"I just wanted to protect the kids! You've seen what happened in Connecticut! I just wanted them to be safe!" The principal's voice broke.

Adam rubbed his forehead. He did feel sorry for the man.

… … …

"So my mom is coming?", Josh asked in a very low voice. He was sitting on the hospital bed, fully dressed, waiting to be picked up.

"Yes, she had some trouble at the airport, but she'll be here any minute."

Tommy rested his eyes on the boy. "Everything okay, buddy?"

Joshua lowered his head and shook it. "I miss dad. And Snowball. Haven't seen mom in ages."

"Doesn't mean she doesn't love you."

"Don't know…" A single tear rolled down Joshua's face.

"Hey…" Tommy crouched down by his side. "You've got all the time in the world to get to know each other. Your dad and Snowball are watching up in heaven. And if anything comes up here, anything, you just call me, okay?" He handed the boy his card. Joshua quietly tucked it away.

… … …

In the hospital's entrance hall Megan heard a woman ask for Joshua Ballantine. Since she wanted to find Tommy she decided to follow her and indeed, the woman led her to a room on the pediatric ward.

But the woman didn't enter.

She just stood there, looking at the door, more or less frozen to the ground… was she shivering?

"Excuse me?", Megan approached her. "You are Josh's mother, aren't you? Everything okay?"

"I haven't seen my boy in years", the woman blurted out. "I went to Europe for a job… but even back when I was living here, with Martin… I never had time, the job was always more important… I didn't even fight it when Martin was granted full custody… and now? I don't know my son…." She burst into tears.

"You've got all the time in the world to get to know each other. Just don't force things", Megan quietly told her. "Be patient. Give him and yourself time to let things grow gradually. It'll work out in the end."

At this very moment the door of the hospital room opened. "Mrs. Ballantine?", Tommy said.

The woman nodded, took a deep breath and walked past him into the room. Tommy decided to give son and mother a moment of privacy and stepped into the corridor.

"Did you hear what I just said?", Megan asked.

Tommy was just about to answer when Megan's cell phone signaled. She had forgotten to turn it off. It was a text message from Todd, her ex-husband.

_You need to come and see Lacey. NOW. _


	15. weather man

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

_**~ weather man ~**_

Weeks had passed since the night Megan had come to his place, the night following her near fatal encounter with Captain Martin, her rescue at the hands of Trent Marsh and the shocking revelation regarding the true circumstances of her father's demise.

Weeks had passed, but the events of that night still haunted Tommy Sullivan, kept him awake when he should be sleeping and made him watch golf and trick snooker at two in the morning.

_I've held the past against you for way too long, Tommy. It's just not fair. _

Gosh, how long had he waited to hear those words? His heart had literally skipped a beat that evening at his apartment, when she had finally, FINALLY said them.

After such a long and rocky road… so many times he had been close to giving up… especially in the aftermath of the evening at the ME's office when she had told him that it was time for both of them to move on – separately…

So many times he had been close to calling Riley, asking her out, continuing what had started out so well between them at the Flyer's game… not to mention the crashed airplane/crashed car/tracheotomy ordeal that had brought them even further together. With Riley everything would be so much more uncomplicated, as Adam had pointed out over drinks more than once.

But he had wanted Megan.

_You're not the man that you were twenty years ago…. _

YES! She had finally seen it! Finally realized how much he had worked on himself. How he had grown – partly because losing her had been one of the worst events in his life, possibly only overshadowed by the loss of Laura, his sister.

He had cupped her face with his hands and they had kissed… the moment his lips had touched hers… it had felt as if someone had suddenly opened a window in a dark, damp room. Megan… his Megan…

Then and there Tommy had decided to make a point of keeping his hands above her waistline, of concentrating on caressing her face, those long missed lips…

But her kisses had seemed to grow in urgency by the second, she had pressed herself against him… when her deft neurosurgeon fingers had suddenly started pulling at his shirt he had had no choice but to take a step back and grab her wrist. "No Megan, not tonight."

She couldn't have looked more shocked and taken aback if he had slapped her face. "What? You've been the one talking about naked butts, mind blowing sex and checking into a hotel!"

"But not tonight – let's just sit on the sofa, put on some music, snuggle up, talk…"

"Have you lost your mind?" Megan obviously had had trouble believing what she was hearing. Well, Tommy had had trouble believing what he had been saying. But he had truly meant it. "You've just survived a murder attempt. You've solved a puzzle that had kept you occupied almost your entire life. To say you're in a highly volatile state of mind right now would be a major understatement."

"Are you saying I'm not serious about this?" At that point Megan's voice had taken on the scalpel sharp tone that she was so well-known for.

"All I'm saying is that you're hurt right now, upset, agitated… I don't want you to regret anything in the morning. This is too important."

A searing stroke of pain had shot through his whole body at the look of sheer anguish in her eyes. Maybe he should have just shut up…she had obviously desperately needed something to take her mind off things, some relief from the pressure she had been under – who was he to deny her that?

Not the man he used to be.

Tommy Sullivan twenty years ago would have jumped at the opportunity to provide a getaway for her, a few hours in which she could just forget everything.

But come the morning he would have heard her quietly rising next to him, putting on her clothes and padding out the room, high heels in hand and the determination not to commit this faux pas ever again firmly in her head.

He wanted so much more from her than a night of mind blowing sex. He wanted to be with her for the rest of his life. So their first night together after all these years couldn't be born out of desperation and shock. It would taint the rest of their relationship and forever give it the air of an emergency association, formed under pressure, kept together by outside forces.

Their reunion needed to be the result of true choice, brought about not by horrific circumstances but by inner readiness.

Jeez, had he become old and wise in the past twenty years. Tommy could almost see his younger self giving his older self a good ass kicking.

"I was wrong", Megan had hissed. "You're still an idiot, Tommy."

And off she had stomped, heels clicking, out of his house. Groaning, Tommy had sat down on his sofa and poured himself another stiff drink. This was crazy.

Goddamn it, this was _crazy_…

His cell phone signaled and Tommy turned off the International Trick Snooker Championships, shaking his head in a vain attempt to clear his mind from the remnants of the ill-fated encounter with Megan. She hadn't lost a word about that night ever since, treated him like it had never happened.

So, had he definitely blown his last chance with her? She was not unfriendly to him… the way she had touched his shoulder back in the school when he had tried to calm Joshua…

Things were still very complicated between them.

The call was from Adam… a body had been found in the middle of Fairmount Park, "completely fried", according to the description of the first officer on the spot.

Good, "completely fried" meant it would be interesting enough for Megan.

He couldn't wait to see her, even if it was not over drinks but over a horribly burnt human being.

"By the way, the first officer on the spot was Riley Dunn", Adam cheerfully informed him and Tommy just could see him smirk.

Oh, for heaven's sake…


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

"Whoever described the body as "completely fried" had quite the expert eye – the victim was indeed exposed to extremely high voltage."

"Thank you, Dr. Hunt", a rather familiar female voice somewhere behind the crouching ME said.

"Officer Dunn." Megan didn't turn around to greet her.

"Could you walk us through, tell us what you found?", Tommy asked Riley while Adam silently communicated with Steven, raising his eyebrows and winking so he'd know that THIS was the young, highly interested, attractive and in general simply cute woman Tommy still could have – if he wasn't running after Megan "iceberg" Hunt so stubbornly.

"Partygoers pretty much stumbled over him when they attempted to use a short cut on their way home. He was already dead. Nobody saw how he got into that state or if he maybe was just dumped here", Riley reported.

Megan shone a flashlight against the severely damaged corpse's head. "Face and many other body regions were destroyed by rupturing blood vessels…" She checked his hands. "No fingerprints determinable. We'll have to hope for missing persons and matching dental records."

"We've already started checking the cars on the parking lots in the vicinity for one where we can't reach the owner, but no luck so far."

"Good job, Officer Dunn", Tommy said.

"Yes, very good job", Megan chimed in, getting up from the ground. "Don't fail to mention it once a new Captain is instated. Presenting what should be a regular part of proceedings at a crime scene as an act of individual initiative, resourcefulness and devotedness to the cause is the key to rising in ranks."

Steven looked from Megan to Riley and back, then gave Adam an amused _Whoa, cat fight anyone?-_look.

"The body won't walk to the ME's office by himself, Steven!", Megan snarled, turning to stomp off in the direction of her car.

Tommy, however, wasn't one to be shaken off that easily. "What's up with Lacey?", he asked, catching up with her as she was opening her car's door.

"How in the world…?" She bit her lip. Damnit, she didn't want him to know anything personal about her anymore. Not the tiniest bit.

"Your jab at Riley was harsh, even by your standards", he explained. "Look Megan, we need to talk. I wanted to do everything right that evening and instead…"

She stopped him with an angry wave of her hand.

"I can't say anything specific about the body yet…"

"Megan…"

"It's a he, I'm pretty sure about that. His hair has burnt off, his clothes, too. I've seen corpses like that after a direct lightning strike… Lightning actually kills more US citizens each year than hurricanes, volcanoes, tornadoes, and earthquakes combined. Behind flash floods, it's the most common cause of storm-related death… but there was no storm tonight and he can't be dead for more than a few hours."

"MEGAN…." Tommy raised his voice in an ill-fated attempt to get through to her.

"In the death penalty context between 1000 and 2500 volts are usually required to kill a person… too low a voltage fails to render the prisoner unconscious, a current above that level sets the person ablaze and ruptures the blood vessels, which is, as far as I can tell, what happened here. It's not the volts that kill somebody, though, it's the amps – they determine how powerful the volts are. Seven amps are used in the context of a controlled execution… this was definitely more. Can't tell you anything about entry or exit point yet…"

Tommy grabbed Megan by her elbows and spun her around so that she was forced to look at him.

"What is the matter with Lacey? You know I'm always there for you."

"Oh, are you, Tommy?", Megan snarled bitterly. "I would have needed you that night I came to your place!"

"You were in complete emotional turmoil! I did not want to exploit your state of mind!"

Tommy was still holding onto her elbows, fighting the urge to shake sense into her.

"Great timing to apply you weekend-seminar-for-advanced-police-personnel kitchen sink psychology! Why in the world couldn't you simply follow your caveman instincts, throw me over your shoulder and carry me into your bedroom, banging your chest in a cheer of triumph?"

For a moment both just stared at each other.

Then they burst out laughing at the visual.

Their eyes met.

"I always want to be there for you, Megan, not just when you're desperate."

She sighed in defeat. "Lacey has got a new haircut."

Tommy was slightly puzzled.

"All her long hair is gone… and she didn't say a word about it. Just went off with some of her new friends from school and when she came back home…"

"Well, she's fifteen now… experimenting with your outfit is a normal part of puberty, isn't it?", Tommy shrugged.

Megan didn't reply.

That was not like her, being lost for words.

"Did she do anything else with her hair? Like, I don't know, dye it green or something?"

Megan's facial expression told him he was right on the money.

"A snow white, thick streak – right where her hair parts. _You just don't get it, mom. _What in the world is there to "get"? My daughter looks like Pepe le Pew!"

Tommy wasn't saying anything, but his face gave away what he was thinking. Megan angrily slapped him against the shoulder. "Thank you for being there for me, Tommy." But there was not as much hatred in her words as there had been only moments before.

"You have to admit, it takes guts to face your ex, your mom AND yours truly Dr. Megan Hunt with a haircut like that… I admire her audacity."

Shaking her head, Megan sighed, a surprisingly soft sound that slowly turned into slight laughter. "It could be much worse, couldn't it?"

"What about dinner as soon as this case is over? At a restaurant? Some place with a balcony and a piano player?"

Yes, it sounded exactly like the thing to do to get over Lacey's act of teenage rebellion.

Riley watched Megan and Tommy from afar and felt a white hot wave of anger rise inside of her. She HAD asked Megan about her relationship to Tommy and she had given her the go ahead! And now? The two were laughing and touching… for heaven's sake! Who the hell did Megan Hunt think she was?


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

The US clearance rate in murder and non-negligent manslaughter cases in the past few years had always hovered around the 68 percent mark. So, statistically a perp had a one in three chance of avoiding apprehension and conviction.

Kate Murphy was well aware that especially thanks to Megan Hunt's efforts Philadelphia's rate was above the national average. One of the reasons she had kept her at the ME's office, despite her at times exasperating antics.

For a long time Kate had simply wanted as many murderers behind bars as possible. A justice and giving-closure-to-the-families thing. Nowadays the high clearance rate also meant political Brownie points… and she needed as many as possible if she ever wanted to free herself from Dan Russell.

Maybe she was talking to Adam Lucas too often, but Russell's growing power over her was disquieting. She could see what Adam was cautioning her against – every delivered favor called for a favor in return… and soon you found yourself in a damn entangled web.

She was running for office to change things… but with owing favors to people like Russell, would she really be able to?

"How far are you with identifying the body?", she asked Megan, slowly taking in the sight of the badly mutilated corpse on the table. He was not exactly burnt, as in "blackened and threatening to turn to ashes any minute", instead the skin was swollen up and covered in horrible blisters. Lots of them had ruptured, revealing angrily red flesh underneath. Yes, he definitely looked fried.

"I don't really need to tell you what happens to DNA under extreme temperatures, do I?", Megan replied without looking up. "Thermal disruption ring a bell? Loss of purine bases from the DNA backbone?"

"I get it, DNA identification, facial recognition and fingerprints are out of question. But what about his teeth?"

Megan rolled her eyes. She knew why Kate was so keen on the results and she didn't like it. Ever since she had decided to have a go at a political career things had become an issue between them that had never been a problem before. Granted, they had always had bones to pick with each other, but nowadays things had taken on a different tone… the DA was visiting Kate in her office way too often.

Suddenly Megan's face lit up – she had figured out a way of annoying Kate, torturing Steven _and _getting rid of a bit of the steam she was still carrying around thanks to her daughter joining the spilugale angustifrons community.

Steven Kershaw spotted the evil grin forming on Dr. Hunt's lips and quietly turned to slip out the door…

"STEVEN!"

Too late.

"Why don't you tell us what you know about forensic odontology? You are familiar with that highly interesting field of criminal investigation, aren't you? Because if you weren't, this probably would be the wrong job for you…"

Steven sighed. "The average healthy adult has 32 teeth which usually show five distinct surfaces. Teeth and surfaces have 160 different surface areas. These vary from individual to individual and allow the actual identification. In addition to that the forensic odontologist will also look for the size of the teeth, their shape and placement, any cavities, fillings, bridges, plates and dentures…"

"Somebody has done his homework", Megan nodded in mock appreciation as she continued working on the corpse's head. "But why not take a look at the downside of forensic odontology, too? Where are the limits of this approach?"

"Why don't you tell _me_, Dr. Hunt?" Steven asked. "I'm sure your explanation will outdo mine by far. And you'll feel better in the process, too. Outshining other people is such a joy to you. But if you prefer me continuing I could work in some deliberate mistakes, so you can berate me…"

"You really need to work on your body language, Steven. Even the most unabashed retort significantly loses its impact if the speaker sweats as much as you."

"Could you two just cut the crap?", Kate Murphy snarled, indeed seriously annoyed by Megan's little game of Q&A. "I'm well aware that identification via dental records only works if we have a selection of dental records to compare our findings against."

Missing person files often included dental records, so did military files and a number of other official records, but there was still a huge amount of people with nowhere registered teeth. If their fried John Doe belonged to that group, they were facing a huge problem, especially since they had already fruitlessly checked for any artificial body parts such as a knee joint or a hip that carried a serial number.

"His X-rays are still running through the system, Kate", Megan told her boss. "I'm checking for any details that might not be visible. The electric shock this man was exposed to must have been so strong, he broke his jaw in the course of the intense convulsions… bone fragments might block our view… whoa…"

"Define _whoa_", Kate said. Part of her was simply intrigued. Another part of her, as she realized with slight repulsion, was thinking that Megan could have just found something sensationally important which would earn her the all-important Brownie points.

Heavens!

Megan grabbed a pair of pincers. Very, very carefully she reached into the deceased man's mouth, lifted a tooth…

"This tooth was deliberately hollowed out… coated with some sort of X-ray resistant metal from the inside… so that it would look perfectly normal to anyone looking at his X-ray image…"

…and retrieved a tiny piece of metal from the small chamber inside the tooth.

She was just as fascinated as the others, but she managed not to show it.

"Looks like a microchip to me", Megan said.

Oh yes, things had suddenly gotten very sensational.

"A microchip inside a tooth? What are we dealing with, a secret agent? Jason Bourne had his identity hidden in an implanted microchip", Steven blurted out before he could stop himself.

"Okay, that's it, one week ban on talking with Ethan for you." Megan cautiously put the object into a glass dish.

"I heard my name?", Ethan came walking in lanky and slightly awkward as ever. It was amazing, he immediately spotted the chip in the dish.

"Is that…? Did you retrieve that from the body? Like Jason Bourne?"

"Make that two weeks", Megan grumbled.


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

"I have to admit, that's pretty cool", Adam Lucas said as Megan presented the microchip to him and Tommy.

Normally they would have sent their find to the CSI unit, but Curtis had suggested they'd try and insert the thing in their own reader first, and lo and behold, the machine was able to access the file that was saved on it. It was still in the process of loading it, though.

Kate was a bit fidgety about the whole thing… theoretically the ME's office was allowed to process evidence that wasn't strictly a body or body part. They usually didn't since the CSI unit was better equipped, but they could. A cunning lawyer, however, could use this to fabricate some sort of technicality… On the other hand, the CSIs were wading knee deep through evidence from all sorts of cases and dealing with a moratorium on overtime… This here was definitely faster.

"That doesn't mean I'm saying yes to that Jason Bourne DVD night", Adam added to his initial statement, quietly, so that only Steven Kershaw could hear him.

"Why not?", the MI replied just as quietly. "Afraid you might actually like it? Don't you think you're just a tiny little bit narrow minded? Come on, what's the worst that could happen?"

At this very moment Ethan came walking in. "Maybe we should all step back a bit? Who knows, maybe the chip was equipped with some sort of self-destruct mechanism…" His eyes were gleaming.

Adam looked pointedly at Steven. _Exhibit A. _

Steven raised his hands in defeat, sighing. _Touché. _

"Things are getting interesting!", Curtis exclaimed. The reader had finally stopped loading. It was now possible to open the file and view its content.

_Name: Anthony Rogers_

_DOB: 6/26/1972_

_Place of birth: Wilmington, DE_

_Profession: meteorologist and physicist_

_Publications: A step into a new dimension: One dimensional cloud models and their possible extensions (AMP Journal 1/6/2002); Atmospheric numerical models and their impact on regional meteorology (The Weather Report 4/18/2003); Cloud seeding and weather control – a small step for meteorology, a giant leap for mankind (Annales Meteorologicae 7/22/2005); A short history of weather control: Past, Present and Future (MAP Science Letters 8/13/2007); Stopping the unstoppable: storm prevention and hurricane modification (monograph, Ellingtonhouse Publishing), ; Stratospheric Aerosol Geoengineering: Utopia or realistic option? (Annales Meteorologicae 9/12/2010)_

"What the…?" Adam frowned.

"A data sheet? That's it? Nothing else? Who goes through all the trouble of hollowing out a tooth and coating the inside with anti-X-ray stuff to hide a simple data sheet?" Tommy was just as puzzled.

"Do you think that's our John Doe's real name? Anthony Rogers? Or is this someone else's bio?", Kate wondered aloud.

"Well…" Megan walked over to a different computer "Only one way to find out…" She accessed the internet and ran a quick online search for "Anthony Rogers", while Kate used a third computer to see if she could find any medical records connected with that name and DOB.

"Do you sometimes have the feeling we're not really needed?", Tommy quietly muttered to Adam and Steven.

"Yeah, tell me about it…", Steven replied.

"The ME's can do it all on their own. Better not let the new captain know about it… should they ever decide on one."

"If they don't need us, what are we here for?", Steven continued. "Pretty deep philosophical question actually…"

"Eye candy?", Tommy ventured.

"Me, maybe. You? Not so much", Adam chuckled.

The two women both looked up from the screens of their computers at the same time, with the same _whoa-_expression on their faces. "You first", Kate said.

"According to several websites, world famous meteorologist and physicist Anthony Rogers perished three years ago in the course of a fire at his laboratory. His death is still surrounded by lots of speculation – since his laboratory was part of an NSA facility the exact circumstances of the fire were never made public. His family tried with a lawsuit to force the authorities to make the investigation files available, at least to them, but it was all to no avail, they are classified to this very day", Megan read from the screen. "What did you find?", she asked Kate.

"The dental records match. Our John Doe is Anthony Rogers." Brief, crisp, but definitely WHOA.

"So he faked his death? We're dealing with an escapee from our dear NSA's claws? Well, that at least partly explains the hidden data sheet…", Megan nodded. "Mr. Rogers seems to have been in a lot of trouble…"

"Maybe he hid his own biography in a tooth so that if he got brainwashed and his memory erased he'd still remember who he was", Ethan excitedly suggested.

None of them said it out loud, but the expressions with which they looked at the young doctor clearly stated one thing:

_No TV for a week. _

"Or…", Megan said slowly, "…he wanted to make sure that people could identify him, should his badly mutilated dead body ever be found in the middle of a park by drunken partygoers at two am in the morning."

At this very moment, the reader, with the microchip still inserted, started giving off a shrill alert sound. Both Megan's and Kate's computer screens started blinking.

"Told you there might be self-destruct mechanism connected to it!", Ethan exclaimed.

"We're definitely under cyber-attack." Curtis hectically started pushing buttons on the reader. "The firewall detected an outside source trying to get access to our files!"

And just as suddenly as the alert had gone off, it went silent again. The computer screens stopped blinking and the reader went back to its usual soft humming.

"Now, don't give me another one of that looks, but if you ask me, that wasn't a coincidence", Ethan said.

For once, no one could argue.

While Tommy called the CSI unit – they now definitely needed one of those geeks to analyze what had just happened, this was way past Curtis' abilities, Kate walked back to her office… to right away experience her next "Can't be a coincidence"-moment.

Her telephone rang.

Dan Russell.

"I heard you've got an interesting case on your hands", he said.


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

"And what case exactly would that be…?", Kate asked innocently.

"Fried man in Fairmount Park", Russell replied smoothly. "Any new developments?"

"The body was discovered only a few hours ago. All we know for sure so far is that he died by electrocution. Accident or murder is undetermined yet."

A brief pause on the other end of the line.

"Are you sure that's all you've discovered so far, Kate?" The DA's tone had suddenly taken on a much stricter note. "Your people are usually incredibly fast at bringing out new details, especially our dear Dr. Hunt. Are you really certain she hasn't identified the body in the meantime?"

In the bluntest way possible, Kate found her suspicions confirmed. Russell knew they had put a name to the body. The question was how he had obtained that particular piece of information… "You don't happen to have some Trojan computer virus planted on the ME office's computer system, do you, Dan? For your own sake I hope not because that would definitely be…"

"Are you accusing me of taking illegal measures, Kate? Because what you're suggesting would be VERY illegal." The DA's voice now spoke of barely contained anger. Kate Murphy, however, had never been one to back down easily.

"Less than five minutes ago someone unsuccessfully tried breaking through the ME office's firewall right after we had made a discovery regarding the victim's name. Now you are calling me, asking me to provide exactly the same information. Don't get me wrong, but that's as subtle as a concussion. And don't you dare tell me I'm jumping to conclusions here!"

Another pause on the other end of the line, this time so long, Kate wondered if Russell had hung up on her – or suffered a heart attack because someone had dared standing up to him.

Finally - no heart attack after all - his voice again, low and gravelly. "What I'm telling you now, Kate…" Another dramatic pause "…has to stay between us under all circumstances. Did I make myself clear?"

Kate could almost hear some sort of ominous bass fiddle heavy background music slowly rising, along with a good portion of artificial mist from a fog machine.

"I'm all ears", she replied.

"We all know certain government institutions scan the internet for key words or special phrases. Whenever these appear, be it on a blogpost, on twitter, in the description of a youtube video or a google search entry, a flag goes up. The key words and phrases are sorted by priority. Some get processed in due time, others cause an immediate response."

"Let me guess, "Anthony Rogers" is on the top priority list", Kate said, fighting the urge to shudder. As much as she supported security measures to keep the public safe, the idea that a simple search engine entry could land you on a secret service list with unknown consequences was somewhat disquieting.

"Don't ask me why, I just know he is and people way above you and me in the food chain want to know more."

Russell needn't say more. She understood well what he was implying: If she didn't play along, she was putting her budding career more at risk than ten adventures with Eastern European ex-mercenaries turned midwife ever could. "Except for the name we know nothing so far", she said.

"But you'll keep me in the loop." He didn't make it sound like a question.

This time around it was Kate who took her time before replying. "Yes", she finally managed to say. Such a little word, only three letters, but nevertheless it felt like she was choking on it.

… … …

"Rogers clearly wasn't killed in Fairmount Park. We need to find the crime scene", Tommy told Megan. "We've got no witnesses, no surveillance tape material, no helpful traces around the body… it's up to you now, Megan, you're the one who keeps saying that the body provides all the answers. It's really time to work your magic."

Megan mhm-mhmed and threw him a glance full of suspicion. "Are you mocking me, Tommy?"

She hadn't said it angrily, but the expression on Tommy's face nevertheless spoke of pain – he looked almost as hurt as back when she had told him they should put the past behind them and he should finally give up on trying to get together with her again.

With a shudder Megan realized that in a rather dark corner of her heart she felt a tiny little tremble of triumph. He had hurt her immensely the night she had come to him, when they had kissed and then he had refused to go on… only fair that he now experienced at least part of what she had gone through.

Megan tried to push the thought away. Would it from now on forever be like that between them? Back at the school, when he had talked to the child, she had been able to forget that damn night, but now it was standing between them again, a huge wall of gray, thick stones, with barbwire on top.

"I've always meant every word I said to you", Tommy replied and they both knew he was referring to his explanation why he hadn't want to go past kissing.

Megan sighed. In hindsight she did understand what he had wanted, why he had acted the way he had. But his rejection had hurt nevertheless.

"The stomach contents might be helpful", she said and turned away from him, heading towards the laboratory's refrigerator. "The routine tox screen isn't back yet, but maybe the type of food reveals something…" She retrieved the respective box from the fridge.

"The average time for gastric emptying is about four hours, but it significantly varies depending on the quantity and type of food consumed. A light meal can be digested within two hours, large, heavy meals can take more than six. This is why MEs in general view using stomach contents to establish the time of death as a rather unsound method with too many variables… but the nature and quality of the food… it looks like Mr. Rogers was into fish…" Megan took an undigested piece of meat and put it under the microscope.

"That's a spot croaker!", she exclaimed.

Tommy couldn't help but laugh. "I was joking about the magic! How in the world can you know from some half-digested slimy bit of Yuck that it once belonged to a spot croaker by simply looking at it?"

The corners of Megan's mouth twitched. There was a story to her knowing this, and it was a funny story, actually, but it would be so much more fun if she kept Tommy guessing….

"Didn't you see me waving my magic wand? You've got to pay more attention!", she said, grinning at him.

Tommy stopped laughing, but the smile on his face remained. This was the first truly relaxed moment between them ever since the ordeal with her father. Maybe there was still hope.


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

As it turned out, there was only one restaurant in all of Philadelphia that served spot croakers. Now if that wasn't a coincidence right out of one of those TV crime shows! But sometimes, sometimes life truly was like that – ant species X only occurred in one specific corner of one particular forest, sediments of Y and Z could only be found in one special location by the river bank – and only one small restaurant served spot croakers as a special delicacy, with mustard and lemon.

It matched Anthony Roger's stomach contents perfectly.

Of course Tommy wanted to head to the restaurant right away and just as of course Megan wanted to tag along. Tommy didn't squabble. He just opened the passenger's door for her and got behind the steering wheel.

Megan ostentatiously squinted her eyes at his hands on the wheel.

"This is MY car", Tommy firmly stated.

Suddenly both couldn't help but smile, cautiously and barely perceptible, but smile they did.

As they got onto the Boulevard, Megan craned her neck to get a better look at the sky. "Seems like it's going to rain. There are quite a few cumulonimbus clouds floating about…"

Tommy shook his head, a broader smile appearing on his face.

"What?" Megan smacked his arm. "Is it the name, _cumulonimbus, _that's amusing you or are you accusing me of showing off again?"

"You're the smartest woman I've ever known."

There it was again, the same connection they both had felt back at the school, when Tommy had talked to the little boy and she had felt the urgent need to touch Tommy's shoulder, get in contact with him, support him somehow…. After the ill-fated night at his place Megan had thought and Tommy had feared the connection was gone, but at the school it had been there and now it was present, too…

"Well, the smartest woman you've ever known completely forgot to bring an umbrella…", Megan replied after a long pause, deciding that right now she just didn't feel up to an in-depth discussion of everything that had happened.

Tommy understood – she needed more time… time to get to terms with all the tumultuous developments, time to get to terms with his feelings regarding him… but there was hope.

"Don't think the rain will be too bad", he replied, dropping the difficult relationship discussion for the moment. "And anyway, this is an official police car, I can park right in front of the entrance."

"Judging from the article Rogers wrote, he was trying to figure out means to control the weather…", Megan mused.

"Could be quite the blessing, to simply redirect tornados to where they don't cause damage or send rain into drought areas…"

"Or quite the weapon. Imagine a nation would be able to conjure up a hurricane and use it to destroy an enemy's cities…" Megan looked at the gathering clouds again.

"Which explains the NSA's interest in him. Could save the lives of a lot of soldiers…"

"And wars would irrevocably be moved from the battlefields right into the centers of civil life… droughts, floods, blizzards and horrific storms would put millions of men, women and children at risk… if the wrong kind of person or nation got hold of such a technology… Nuclear warfare would be a piece of cake, compared to the possible military consequences of weather control…" Megan turned her eyes away from the sky. Suddenly the clouds looked even more menacing.

"Guess that's why Rogers pulled all that secret agent shit, faked his own death, had the chip hidden in his tooth… He didn't want his research results to be used for military purposes…" Tommy turned into Broad Street.

"…but he didn't want to stop researching altogether… because you're right, as much damage as weather control could cause, if someone used it peacefully, for solely non-military purposes this could actually help millions of people." Suddenly Megan grew excited. An idea was clearly forming in her head.

"You know what? It's possible his death was an accident – he could have received a fatal electric shock while constructing one of the machines for weather control that he talks about in his articles. As far as I've gathered from the texts so far, all of his envisaged inventions involved the usage of high voltage…."

Tommy nodded… it was a lucid explanation. "But he didn't walk into the center of Fairmount Park on his own… the place where the body was found surely wasn't the place where he died… no signs of any burning whatsoever on the grass, the trees, the bushes… someone must have dumped his corpse there. If it was an accident, why the mystery?"

Good point. Maybe they'd find an answer or two at the spot croaker serving restaurant.

… … …

Tommy did park right in front of the restaurant. Unfortunately it didn't do them much good – the rain that had set in about a block away from the venue's address was coming down so heavily, although there were only a few feet to cross between car and restaurant door, both were drenched when they stumbled inside.

The restaurant's owner and chef hadn't arrived yet when they came in, but the waiter was horrified at their dripping, freezing state and immediately offered them two chef's uniforms to change into. They both declined. The uniforms were in classic white, traditional cut with black stud buttons, long sleeves, double breasted, French cuffs and Mandarin collar – no way they'd wear something like that.

"Aren't umbrellas mandatory in police cars?" Megan shook herself like a wet dog.

"Theoretically yes… practically the one in that particular car fell prey to… an incident…"

Megan was just about to inquire what incident exactly he was referring to when she noticed his eyes briefly zeroing in on her upper body… the area of her bust, to be exactly. "Did the rain make the cloth of my blouse transparent?", she asked, eyebrow arching.

"You might want to change into something else after all…", he said nonchalantly.

"Same goes for you, Tommy." His muscular chest was peeking through the wet fabric of his shirt as well and she gave his papilla mammaria a pointed look.

They decided to accept the Chef's uniforms after all. The restaurant's restrooms were currently being cleaned, so Megan ended up using the owner's office to change and Tommy retreated to the storage room, which was right next to the office and shared a balcony with it.

Boy, had they gotten wet! Maybe it would have been the better option to go back home to change since even her underwear was drenched, but on the other hand… they had gotten so far… Sighing, Megan stripped down completely, reached for the chef's uniform… and froze in mid-motion.

Laughter in the corridor!

Apparently a whole group of people was approaching the office. What now? They were talking so loudly, having a good time, they probably wouldn't hear her if she called out to them to not come inside… another option was to hurry to the door and block it somehow, but what kind of an impression would that create? A law enforcement representative, blocking a witness' office, yelling at them from inside that she was stark naked right now and they should please wait two minutes?

Very professional conduct.

She and Tommy were planning to conduct an interview here, for heaven's sake and it was worse enough that they would have to execute it dressed in chef's uniforms.

In a spur-of-the-moment decision to rescue what dignity she had left, Megan grabbed the chef's uniform, her wet pile of the clothes she had come in and –as naked as mother bore her – raced outside, onto the balcony. Luckily the heavy rainfall in the meantime had given way to a modest drizzle and just as luckily Tommy heard her banging against the storage rooms balcony door and opened it for her, already clad in the chef's uniform.

"If you wanted to see my naked butt again you're a minute too late", he quipped. Then he noticed how much she was shivering and immediately grabbed a tablecloth from one of the shelves. The storage room looked as if it originally had been designed as a second office and now served as a place to stash all sorts of non-organic stuff, spare chairs, boxes with napkins and candles…

Tommy started rubbing Megan down without further ado.

Of course she wanted to protest, but she was shivering from the cold by now, the doctor in her told her that hypothermia needed to be avoided at all costs, there was nothing sexual about his touch, just the determination to get her safe and dry asap again and beside all that: It felt damn good!

Five minutes later they were finally both dressed again and ready to interview the restaurant's owner.

"Of course I know him!", the friendly balding man in his late fifties exclaimed as they showed him a slightly soaked drawing of Anthony Rogers. Kate had made it – finding photos of him through their data bases had turned out to be impossible, thanks to the classified status of this NSA years.

"That is Weather B. Rayne! A regular guest!"

_Weather B. Rayne…_ now that was a creative alias for a weatherman if they had ever heard one.

"He often came here with his assistant, Cynthia."

"You don't happen to have Cynthia's last name?", Tommy asked, already looking for any sign of surveillance cams in the restaurant. Maybe they could use a picture from video footage to track her down.

"I have a telephone number – she often called ahead so we'd have the food ready when they arrived. Would that help?"


	21. Chapter 21

**Disclaimer: I don't own Human Target and intend no copyright infringement.**

"We've got a lead", Tommy let Adam know via telephone and transmitted Cynthia's number to him. "There's got to be an address or at least a location linked to that number. Once you got it, have it watched. Megan and I will be there asap."

There was no way he or Megan would show up for another interview dressed up as Mario Batali and Julia Child.

Finding out the address of course was a piece of cake for Adam. He was grinning as he ordered a patrol car to keep eyes on the respective building.

… … …

"Nothing to report. The ground floor is taken up by an auto repair shop, the floors above form a stacked apartment. Both are rented out to a Weather B. Rayne, but nothing is moving, nobody's going in or out", the cop that Adam had sent told Tommy and Megan as they finally arrived at the location, now dressed properly again.

"Thank you, Officer Dunn", Tommy nodded, as matter-of-factly as possible, while silently deciding that Adam Lucas was in for a good ass-kicking. He beckoned at Megan to follow him, only to find out that she had already started approaching the front door.

Would she ever…?

No, probably not.

Tommy stifled a sigh. Behind his back Riley Dunn squinted her eyes and turned them into angry slits as she trained them on _Dr. _Megan Hunt.

Since they had good reason to believe that Weather B. Rayne was identical with their John Doe, there were no legal hindrances to entering the building, but of course there was a physical one – the door lock. "We need a locksmith, Megan…"

Of course that didn't stop her from trying the repair shop's door handle.

The door swung open.

Grinning at him, Megan entered the shop.

The premises were incredibly clean.

Neat.

And empty.

Huge, properly stacked heaps of metal parts had been erected everywhere. Surrounded by boxes full of screws, nuts, springs… all carefully sorted… They all shone like somebody gave them a damn thorough scrub down. And, judging from the smell, also disinfected them… They were clean like surgical instruments.

"What is this?" Tommy lifted a flexible metal tube from a vast collection of metal tubes. Megan took a look at what must have been hundreds of circuit boards. Her eyes were suddenly gleaming.

"Clever…", she said. "Very clever…."

"And maybe you'd let me know, so I can admire your ingenuity properly…?"

They both saw it at the same time.

"Don't tell me you also know what THAT is about", Tommy murmured, warily circling the object in the center of the room.

Megan didn't reply. Just like him she was completely focused on the odd construction someone had put up what she guessed were exactly fifteen feet from the front door, from the windows and the stairwell in the back. Surely no coincidence. Someone with a mathematical mind had been at work here.

"Megan?" Tommy crouched to the floor, taking a closer look. "You still with me?"

Megan still didn't reply. She was practically mesmerized, kept looking up and down, glanced at the ceiling, took a step back, frowned, walked around the thing, looked at the ceiling again.

Their object of interest was basically a square metal pillar, about four feet in height. No keypad, no visible power lines, no display, no indication whatsoever what the thing was about. Just a bright red button on top of the pillar.

"Megan!" Tommy got up again. "I know you're in your happy science place, but there is a very dead body in your morgue and I'd really like to know what happened. Or shall I get Ethan here, to drool all over the place?"

"I'm not sure yet", she finally replied. "But there's an easy way to find out…"

Like a bolt of lightning it struck Tommy what Megan was about to do. "NO! MEGAN! NO!"

"What, afraid that I activate the self-destruct mechanism?" Knowing exactly that Tommy, who was hectically lunging out at her, wouldn't reach her in time, Megan hit the red button on top of the pillar.

Tommy froze.

Megan looked at the ceiling and grinned. One of its panels had opened itself and a tiny device was slowly getting lowered downwards.

"Is that a camera?" Tommy shook his head. First a hollow tooth, now this?

"Projector, if I'm not completely mistaken." This was definitely the most interesting case they had had in a while. "Just wait and see…"

The projector activated itself and lo and behold, a silvery stream appeared between the projector and the pillar – a flowing stream of colors that slowly formed… the image of a young woman!

"Is that really what I think it is?" Tommy just couldn't believe it.

"A hologram…", Megan nodded.

Suddenly a voice could be heard. It had to be coming from hidden speakers somewhere.

_My name is Cynthia Bodden. I met Weather B. Rayne a couple of years ago, at the university, while I was working on my doctoral thesis. He offered me to work for him, as his assistant. It turned out to be the time of my life. We sometimes worked twenty hours in one go. I never got to finish my thesis. But I wouldn't want to miss a minute. Rayne was extremely inspiring… He became everything to me, mentor, father figure, friend. What I learned from him in those few years…. The science of weather control became our shared passion. We were making significant progress and in the end came up with a machine that could influence the formation of thunderstorms. Unfortunately we still had to work out some …kinks… We had problems with the voltage… Two days ago I came into the laboratory and found Rayne killed by electrocution – a malfunction of the machine. We had video surveillance in the lab, I've left a copy of the tape in the desk upstairs. It was a horrible accident. Now, Rayne was a scientist through and through, he lived and breathed his work. But if there was one thing he regretted, it was that he had to hide from his family, thanks to the NSA and the other secret service rats. He was already beyond rescue when I found him. There was only one thing left that I could do for him. I could make sure his family would find out about his death and stop looking for him. Give them closure. That's why I left his body at such a public place. Thank you for taking the investigation of his demise seriously. _

The hologram disappeared.

"She must have dismantled all the machines they were using, sorted them and cleaned them so that it'll be really difficult to figure out which part went where… in case somebody's watching our investigation…"

At this very moment somebody harrumphed from the door. A man in an unobtrusive suit flashed an ID card at them.

NSA.

No additional explanations needed.

And no need to put up a fight. Weather B. Rayne's death had been an accident. Cynthia Bodden had done her best to hide what they had been working on, so that their results couldn't be used for unethical purposes. Cynthia herself had apparently gone undercover. There was nothing left to do.

Tommy silently offered Megan a lift home and she accepted. Neither of them spoke a word as the car wove through the dense traffic. Their thoughts were elsewhere, not circling around the ill-fated evening at Tommy's place for a change, though. They were thinking about dedication, about science, about chances, limitations, pros and cons…

Life was difficult.

Speaking of…

"Hey, isn't that Lacey over there, at the MacDonald's?", Tommy suddenly broke the silence, nodding in the direction of the fast food restaurant. "Shouldn't she be in school right now?"


	22. union talk

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

_**~ union talk ~**_

"While I'm willing to write your new hairstyle off as teenage search for identity gone overboard, truancy, Lacey, is completely unacceptable."

Lacey rolled her eyes. At least her mother had waited with reading her the riot act till Tommy had dropped them off at her father's house. On the downside she now had to deal with her mother's and father's wrath combined. Gosh, were they both making fools of themselves.

"Chillax mom - it's no big deal."

Predictably her mother and father took turns in exploding at that _chillaxed _statement:

"NO BIG DEAL?"

"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?"

"WHAT HAVE YOU BEEN THINKING?"

"YOU'RE GROUNDED FOR A MONTH!"

Oh, no, now hang on a sec - while Lacey had been completely aware of the strong possibility that her parents would rely on that Stone Age method to keep her in that prison they had built around her in the past fifteen years of her life, she was definitely not going to accept an entire month of incarceration without putting up a fight.

"A whole month? Have YOU lost your minds? Who the fuck do you think you are?"

Lacey realized she had made a tactical mistake as soon as the f-word had left her mouth. Truancy _and _strong language? They'd never let this pass without punishment. Not to mention that for a brief moment she had been just as shocked at her brazen word choice as her parents were. Then, however, she imagined Cass' and Scotto's reaction to her lapse.

Boy would they be proud of her! No more little girl Lacey. They'd probably cheer her on to add some more expletives.

For today, though, faced with icy but clearly simmering silence from her parents' side, Lacey felt she had used up all audacity she could muster.

Well yeah, no surprise there, given how much her dear mum and dad – with substantially help from grandma's side! – had oppressed her natural development ever since she was born. It was completely understandable that she still felt inhibitions when it came to giving them a piece of her mind. Cass was so cool and everything she said made so much sense.

Lacey decided to channel her new friends a bit and pulled a Scotto – stomping her feet she got up from the chair they had forced her to sit on – as if she was criminal in an interrogation! They were talking about a single skipped lesson, for heaven's sake! A _history _lesson, of all things! Who needed history anyway? – and faced them standing, jaw set, chin pulled up. "I'm sick and tired of you trying to boss me around!"

Okay, so she did have a little audacity left in her after all.

Both her parents were still silent – but this time it was not from anger, it was from bafflement. How dare she talk like that? Completely clueless how to react, they could do nothing but stare.

Lacey allowed herself a triumphant smile. It felt so good standing up to them! Boy, was she grateful she had met Cass and Scotto. They had truly opened her eyes. Without them she'd still be her parents' little girl, well behaved, pretty to look at in her baby clothes, always doing what she was told… well, those days were over. Her parents were in for quite a ride. They were dealing with the new Lacey now! She turned on her heels and exited the room.

Still flabbergasted, Todd looked at his ex-wife and shook his head. "I don't get it. What happened?"

"These new friends you've mentioned, have you ever met them? Those kids she met at her new school?"

"You think they've got a bad influence on her?" Todd started pacing up and down the room. A familiar gesture. Megan had seen it a lot at the end of their marriage.

"The prefrontal cortex is the part of the frontal lobes that's lying just behind the forehead. It's responsible for cognitive analysis, abstract thought and behavior control in social situations. With the help of myelin it processes information from all of the senses and guides people's thoughts and actions in response. Teens have less myelin in the frontal lobes of their brains, compared to adults. The amount increases during puberty. More myelin means growth of important brain connections, allowing for better flow of information between brain regions. In the end, around the age of twenty-five, the cortex' growth process is finished and the person is well-equipped to make reasonable decisions, foresee and weigh possible consequences of behavior etc. etc. During the early teenage years, however… It is natural that she orientates herself by looking at her friends' example."

"Are you seriously excusing her behavior?" Todd's voice rose in volume.

"No, Todd, I'm not _excusing_ anything. I'm just telling you that there are scientific explanations for her outrageous behavior. "

"When you first laid eyes on her new hairstyle an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex wasn't exactly the first thing that came to your mind." Now Todd's voice had taken on an incisive quality.

"I had time to think about it." Megan thought of Tommy's reaction… his calm, humorous response to her angry outburst had got her thinking, had made her remember what she had learned of teenage brain development, had helped her put things in a reasonable perspective. This here of course was a lot graver than temporary self-mutilation with hair colorant, but maybe they really had to calm down. Granted, she hadn't been exactly calm in the conversation they had just had, but now that they were among themselves it was definitely time to take a breather.

"Well congrats to your newly found serenity. Great timing to discover a more liberal attitude to the vicissitudes of life", Todd spat bitterly. "We've got a major problem on our hands, Megan."

"I'm well aware that…"

Megan's cell phone signaled. Tommy. He summoned her to a crime scene.

"I'm sorry, Todd, I…"

"At least one thing hasn't changed", he hissed. "Your job still always comes first."


	23. Chapter 23

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

The murder victim was a man in his late sixties. Tommy informed them that they were dealing with Professor Dr. Milton Stuart, renowned reproductive endocrinologist, head of medicine at Philadelphia's biggest fertility clinic. He had announced his retirement a couple of months ago. This evening at the Royal Hotel had been planned as his big farewell party, including a five course dinner, dancing and accolades for his life's work.

One look at his scalp and Megan knew he must have undergone hair transplantation about a decade ago. Tiny traces around his eyes indicated a more recent face lifting, probably along with regular Botox and collagen treatment. His even tan spoke of a sunbed, his teeth of artificial bleaching.

Unfortunately none of those surely quite costly aesthetic interventions made his corpse look any prettier now.

"Strychnine is infamous for its dramatic symptoms. Care to walk us through, Steven?" Lately Megan had discovered that putting her MI in the hot seat was quite the relaxing exercise. Miles better than yoga.

"Fatal strychnine poisoning comes along with severe nausea – apparently Mr. Stuart vomited quite a bit…" Steven pointed at the reeking remains of the professor's last meal, still smeared all over the stage where he had died.

"Convulsions of all muscle groups… in this case the spasm of the abdominal muscles bent the body forward, but other arch-shapes are common, too… some victims were found resting on heels and occiput."

Megan nodded in approval. As much as she liked torturing Steven, she was willing to give credit where credit was due – he definitely was doing his homework.

"Look at the blue color of the skin… that's a dead giveaway. Spasms of the facial muscles cause cyanosis of the face. And there's also dilated pupils, prominent eye balls and frothing at the mouth…"

"On the video material from the surveillance cam it looks as if he slowly lost his mind… and he reacted extremely oddly when people tried to help him", Adam chimed in.

"Loss of a clear mind and dramatic exaggeration of normal reflexes are common symptoms, too", Steven nodded. "Because death throes after strychnine poisoning set in extremely quickly and are rather spectacular in their whole variety of symptoms, movies and literature often depict this type of poison murder, but actually they are pretty rare…"

"Yeah, because this practically screams unnatural death and demands further investigation", Adam agreed. "No police man worth his salt would pass _this_ off as a stroke or heart attack."

"I need to confirm it through autopsy, but judging from everything I've seen so far he died of asphyxiation, caused by muscle spasms", Megan stated, getting up from her crouching position by the body. "An accident is highly unlikely. Strychnine is derived from the seeds of the Strychnos nux-vomica tree. They have to be crushed to be toxic – cases are known where complete seeds were swallowed without causing any effects. Wouldn't try that at home, though… Judging from the severity of the symptoms, Professor Stuart must have received an enormously high dosage, pretty much right before the spasms set in. What does the video material say?"

The video material showed lots and lots of people with glasses in their hands, chatting, laughing, celebrating, plucking finger food from the trays of waiters weaving expertly through the elated crowd. Right before his death Professor Stuart had taken part in a champagne reception that had been supposed to herald the start of the festivities. They had served champagne alongside with freshly squeezed orange juice. The juice's crisp taste (no sugar added) had probably masked the poison's trademark bitterness.

There he was, Professor Milton Stuart, alive and well, leisurely walking from one group of guests to the next, broad smile on his face. People greeted him with affectionate hugs, kisses on the cheeks and reverent handshakes. Not a scowl in the house. The professor's whole demeanor spoke of pride and happiness. He was bathing in the fruits of his long career. Very vaguely in the back of her mind Megan realized that she had always imagined her own retirement party in a similar fashion.

Before the accident.

Before the divorce.

Before she had killed a patient on the operating table.

They don't really throw big retirement parties for medical examiners. There was a difference between dealing with corpses and dealing with living patients – the former, in the best of cases, brought closure, while the latter brought hope, happiness, a future. Megan had learned to appreciate this side of her old job as a neurosurgeon way too late.

Tommy noticed her thoughtfulness and lightly touched her arm. "You okay?"

"Thanks to him so many people who had given up hope on a child of their own became parents after all… he was a genius in his field… the amount of lives he touched… all the kids that came into the world because of him…"

Megan was getting irritated with herself. She usually wasn't of the sentimental kind. But Milton Stuart had been a world-class doctor. Just like she had been, once upon a time. Only he had had the chance to go through with it, keep on doing what he had been best at… while she had made a stupid mistake that had cost her everything.

"You're touching lives, too. You're helping to bring justice to those who can't speak up for themselves anymore", Tommy said, sensing what she was not saying out loud.

"The professor should have been able to enjoy his retirement – to lay back and watch grow what he planted. Imagine seeing all those children that you helped come into being become adults, witness them finding their place in the world… Someone snatched that away from him. We've got to find the bastard."

"Look there!", Adam explained, pointing at the monitor where they had been watching the video material from the reception. "Here his champagne glass is empty… he dives into a throng of people, the camera loses him for a moment… and when he comes out again, his glass is full again… he moves on… sips from the glass… sips some more… shakes hands, exchanges a few words with an old colleague… here the symptoms set in."

"We need to find out where he got the glass", Tommy said.


	24. Chapter 24

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

Megan ordered the body to be brought in and decided to follow the van immediately, Steven in tow. Of course she didn't tell him that she was leaving now, but Adam nudged him right in time and after a short sprint to the parking lot he managed to yank the car door open and hop on the passenger's seat before she had gained too much speed.

"You're really helping me to improve my fitness level", he gasped as he fastened his seat belt.

Megan couldn't help but grin. Steven was definitely showing stamina. She liked that.

Inside the hotel's banquet hall Tommy and Adam told the guests that they would have to stay a little longer, approximately another three to four hours, for further questioning and the taking of fingerprints. They'd also be grateful for any voluntarily given DNA sample.

Of course angry grumble arose from the crowd of guests like a swarm of bees from a disturbed hive. Tommy could already see the higher ranking attendees whipping out their cell phones to complain to whatever higher up they knew.

Ah well, he could take that kind of flak with a certain dispassionateness. As long as they didn't have a new Captain, nobody was really responsible for them; their current substitute had his hands full with his own department and cared about their lot only when he absolutely had to. Not good when you desperately needed something, a helicopter for example or an extra safe house, but definitely advantageous when it came to the power play of good connections.

Predictably the willingness to give up voluntary DNA samples remained within narrow bounds. Nobody likes to end up in a police database. You never know when this kind of information becomes relevant… for example after the inexplicable disappearance of your ex-wife… or those ridiculous accusations of your former student… life sometimes takes odd turns. Better not take any chances.

The fingerprints however, had to be given up – Adam happily took the microphone from the speaker's desk and informed the party guests that if they refused obligatory fingerprinting they'd be taken to the police station and accommodated in a cozy holding cell, with a couple of drug dealers, car thieves and other thugs to keep them company. State law allowed them to keep them there for 72 hours. Then, if they still insisted on their constitutional rights or whatever, they'd be turned over to the county sheriff who'd bring them to a judge who'd officially order them to cooperate. In case they still put up resistance law enforcement personnel would use force to get them fingerprinted. If that wasn't possible, for example because the person in question was suffering from a heart condition or whatever, the judge would hold them in contempt of court, which was in theory possible until the judge was no longer in office.

Apparently just for good measure Adam also told his audience about a woman they had stopped after she had run a red light. She refused to identify herself, threw a tantrum when they tried to force fingerprints from her and in the end remained in custody for two months before they had managed to establish whom they were dealing with. Turned out she had been the head of a European white slave ring before barely escaping the French police in the context of a case that involved some high-ranking politicians in the pockets of the wrong people. They were all brought down in the end.

The last part of the story got Tommy thinking and explained why Adam was so thoroughly enjoying himself.

"Some of your father's acquaintances among the guests?", he asked.

"Yes. And no lawyer in the world can prevent them from having to give up their fingerprints!" Adam was practically beaming with delight.

Thanks to the rather long guest list, questioning the witnesses took ages and the hours soon dragged on without anything substantial to come out of it. At least the search of the building brought a result: In a garbage can they found a small plastic bag with traces of white powder still caught in its corners. A rapid test by the CSIs strongly indicated that they were dealing with the remnants of the murder weapon.

Tommy's cell phone signaled. Megan.

"I made a mistake", she said without greeting or introduction.

Tommy looked at the display, checked if it was really Megan calling, blinked and checked again.

"Tommy?"

"Excuse me, could you repeat that? Because I think I heard you say you made a mistake." Tommy switched his cell to video mode and let her see the shocked expression on his face.

"Very funny." Megan's voice was dripping with annoyance. "Curtis said he needed a stiff drink, Kate pretended she had to help Ethan lie down on one of the autopsy tables to get over the trauma and I think Steven is still doing some ridiculous dance of triumph thanking the gods that he was allowed to experience history first-hand. So whatever additional lame joke you've got in mind, I've already heard it."

Deeply annoyed Megan or not, Tommy just couldn't resist. "Cut them some slack. It is quite the experience, discovering that you're human after all…"

"Are you still interested in the case, Tommy, or shall I call again tomorrow?"

"I'm all ears", he grinned. After all these years pushing her buttons still was fun.

"I told you Strychnine was derived from the seeds of the Strychnos nux-vomica tree. The fruit is contains five seeds with a very hard shell, which is why it's theoretically possible to swallow them without dying… if you're really lucky. These seeds are the chief commercial source of strychnine, that's why I thought of them first…" Megan let her voice trail off.

"Spill it out, Megan, it won't hurt, trust me."

"The tox test results just came back. It's not Strychnos nux-vomica. It's Saint Ignatius' bean, a fruit derived from the Strychnos ignatii plant. The seeds contain just as much strychnine as nux-vomica, they're just not as common."

"I'm sure this'll turn the case around, Megan." Tommy stated in a mockingly grave tone. He knew it was important information… but teasing Megan after hours of fruitless questioning… hell, even veteran cops at a gruesome crime scene in the midst of loss and tragedy were allowed a little bit of fun every now and then, weren't they?

"Just wait and see till it turns out the murderer has a Strychnos ignatii in his greenhouse", Megan replied icily.

Just then a CSI came walking up to Adam. Electronic fingerprinting had made it possible to compare the prints on the plastic bag with the prints of the guests.

"Tommy! We've got a match!"


	25. Chapter 25

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

Tommy looked through the one-way window into the interrogation room and sighed. This was not going to be easy.

And it had nothing to do with outraged Mrs. and Mrs. Stockton, stomping up and down the room.

"This is ridiculous!"

"I've never heard so much bullshit in my life!"

"The police has no clue at all and just to present something, they raise these absurd accusations!"

"We're going sue the whole department!"

Tommy had heard it all before. The Stockton's threats were not the problem.

Neither was the legal eagle they had hired and sure cost a fortune, especially at this unholy hour. Even he, with his flawless reputation and a zillion won cases couldn't discuss the fingerprints on the bag with the poison and the professor's glass away.

Fingerprints that definitely and undeniably belonged to Annabelle Stockton.

The Stockton's fifteen year old daughter.

She was sitting among the adults, her angry parents in complete uproar, the expensive lawyer displaying professional composure… and she looked horribly fragile. Pale as a ghost, trembling, eyes huge with fear she sat on the edge of a chair, frozen and mute. All of Tommy's instincts screamed at him to offer the child a blanket.

"Not exactly your typical Arsenic Annie…", Adam said. "Guess looks are deceiving in her case… Test results for the palm of her hands and her evening gown just came back. Traces of strychnine on both. She definitely handled the poison."

He paused, saw the doubtful expression on Tommy's face and continued, shrugging.

"We even have a waiter who witnessed her taking two glasses off his tray, one with pure orange juice apparently for herself and one with champagne and juice mixed that he figured she wanted to hand an adult. We matched the waiter's fingerprints with the prints on the professor's glass and they're underneath Annabelle's – the glass he saw her taking is the glass the professor drank the poison from."

Tommy shook his head, not taking his eyes off the girl. She looked horribly shrunken – shoulder sagged, head lowered, hands shaking…. Remorse personified.

"Are you sure she did it?" Megan came walking in, a lot less crisp than usual, tired from the autopsy and the late hour of the night. Nevertheless, when news had reached her that they already had the professor's murderer, she had wanted to take a look.

The sight of the wispy girl dressed up in a lavender colored evening gown almost too formal for her, brown hair done up in a complicated French pleat that made her neck seem even thinner, however, did not make her feel as triumphant as she had expected.

This was no bastard. This was a girl in Lacey's age.

Yes, she had met murderers of Lacey's age and gender before – that psychopath Darby for example. But this girl… she looked so… broken…

"Evidence is overwhelming. And she's clearly displaying signs of regret. I'm just as puzzled as you are, but it seems we've solved the case in record time. The only thing missing is the motive."

"Well, judging from her behavior she's already coming apart at the seams. We should have the motive in an hour tops."

Both Tommy and Megan gave Adam and his somewhat inappropriate cheerful optimism a reproachful look.

"What? She killed somebody! That professor's death throes lasted for almost ten minutes. Do you have any idea how much pain he had to go through? How much pain _little Annie here _put him through?"

Adam did have a point. Deep regret and looking like Bambi after his mother's demise, did not undo the fact that she had committed a gruesome crime.

"I want the motive", Megan said.

The Stockton's lawyer tried to postpone Annabelle's interrogation till the next morning, claiming she was underage and exhausted, but it was more to justify his huge bill later than because he really thought he'd successfully push his request through.

Adam tried to inform the parents about the state of evidence against their daughter, but he failed spectacularly. "Annabelle skipped year five and eight! She's singing in the choir, plays cello in the school band, made it into the cheerleader squad…" Annabelle's mother was close to tears.

"Next summer she'll take part in Harvard university's High School student program! Why in the world should she kill somebody?" Annabelle's father was not exactly composed either.

"Annabelle was supposed to deliver a speech at Professor Stuart's function because he was so proud of her achievements! You know, he cared about all the children that he helped into life as if they had been their own…" Now the mother _was _crying.

Tommy, watching Adam, the parents and the girl couldn't help but notice that both Mr. and Mrs. Stockton were speaking as if Annabelle wasn't even in the room. She didn't only look like a ghost, to her parents she actually seemed to be nothing but thin air.

Not even trying to be unobtrusive or quiet about it, he sat down beside her. The lawyer noticed and pricked up his ears, but the Stocktons were completely oblivious to the fact that the official interrogation of her daughter had just started. They were way too busy telling Adam what a perfect child Annabelle was.

"You didn't mean to kill him", Tommy told the girl.

Her answer was a choked sob.

"He screamed", she whispered. "He screamed and clawed at his face. It was so horrible!"

Again Tommy fought the urge to get her a blanket.

"Strychnine does have that effect on people. With two skipped classes you should have been aware of that. Where did you get the beans?"

For a moment something aside from regret and sorrow lit up in her eyes. Tommy furrowed his brows. What had that been? It had only been a very brief second, he hadn't quite caught it…

The door of the interrogation room opened and Megan stuck her head in. "Can I talk to you?", she asked Tommy.

She had seen the brief flash in Annabelle's eyes, too.

"That was puzzlement!", Megan told Tommy right outside the door. "When you said "beans" she was confused, she didn't know what you were talking about. I bet she thought her strychnine had been mad of nux-vomica seeds, just like I did!"

"So she didn't produce it herself…", Tommy nodded. Pondering what this meant, he reentered the interrogation room. Apparently Adam had finally managed to make the parents shut up.

"What happened, Annabelle?", he asked.

"I made a mistake", she whispered.


	26. Chapter 26

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

_I made a mistake. _

And that was it. No further comment. The girl just fell silent. Completely silent, like an iceberg floating in a dark blue sea, a sand dune slowly moving through a vast desert, a fallen tree in an overgrown rain forest.

Only less serene, more desperate.

Annabelle's parents, however, were everything but silent.

"You cannot interpret that as an admission of guilt!", the lawyer managed to squeeze in before a thunderstorm of outrage broke loose.

"You made A MISTAKE?"

"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR MIND?"

"Did you seriously just admit to KILLING PROFESSOR STUART?"

Annabelle kept staring at the table in front of her with its dull, stainless surface. She looked like she was staring into an abyss.

"WE ARE TALKING TO YOU, YOUNG LADY!", the mother bellowed.

No reaction.

This was not the stubborn "I don't hear you"-reaction Lacey had shown after they had caught her playing hooky… it was more that Annabelle was retreating, withdrawing further and further into herself. Tommy had the growing feeling that this was a practiced survival strategy.

"DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT HELL WE WENT THROUGH TO BRING YOU INTO THE WORLD?" The father could bellow just as well as the mother.

"First they tried intracervical insemination… I was put on fertility drugs that made me fat and ruined my skin… my fertility cycle was monitored… they used a catheter with a syringe on top to reach my cervix… and placed a sponge cap over it…" Mrs. Stockton shuddered at the memory.

"ICI would have been the least costly option, only 200 to 350$ a try, but of course it didn't work. Three attempts and nothing." Mr. Stockton made it sound as if it was Annabelle's fault.

"Then we moved on to intrauterine insemination… more fertility medication… pills… injections… clomiphene, gonadotropins, bromocriptine, cabergoline… I was told horror stories about diseases from improperly screened semen, ovarian hyperstimulation, and multiple pregnancies…" Tears were forming in Mrs. Stockton's eyes.

"5000$ a try! One attempt cost us FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS!" Mr. Stockton was showing clear signs of agonal respiration. "We did that three times… in vain…"

Annabelle showed no visible reaction to her parents' tirade. Tommy wondered how often she had already heard it.

"In the end Dr. Stuart suggested intracytoplasmic sperm injection…" Mrs. Stockton was positively crying now.

"FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS", Mr. Stockton yelled. "It cost us FIFTEEN THOUSAND DOLLARS! And NATURALLY we had to do it TWICE again!"

"All those failed attempts… they made me feel like I wasn't a human being anymore… just a breeding mare… I had to take more fertility medication… they controlled my egg ripening… removed my eggs with a needle… put four of them into my uterus…" Wailing, Mrs. Stockton covered her face with her hands.

"With all the additional costs we had run up a bill of almost 100.000$ in the end… ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS! For one hundred thousand dollars you can buy a 3,090 ft 1988 Hallberg-rassy 312 MKII yacht… or a corvette C2 split window 327cui. V8 300PS… or a Swiss Made CEO Tech World Centennial wrist watch!

Tommy unconsciously balled his hand into a fist.

The door to the interrogation room was suddenly all but kicked open. The clicking of high heels, echoing like thunder in the Grand Canyon, accompanied Megan's entrance. Tommy could see she was shaking with fury, barely keeping her emotions in check.

"As the medical examiner in charge I herewith rule that Annabelle Stockton is to be admitted to a hospital right away. We need run tox screens to see if she got any of that strychnine into her system. She also has to be put on 24-hour suicide watch with no contact whatsoever to her regular social environment, including the parents. This is a must to determine if any earlier dealings with the poison left her with psychological problems. Strychnine poisoning can lead to mental complications, we don't know how careful she was when she handled the beans."

Barely perceptible to the eye, Annabelle moved. So she was listening after all.

Megan gave the lawyer a look that could have turned a basilisk into stone. Would he inform the parents that she had just told them a truckload of cleverly made-up BS? Or did he have a heart?

It turned out, he had a heart.

"As difficult as it will be to be separated from you beloved daughter in this rather complicated situation, Mr. and Mrs. Stockton, I have to agree with Dr. Hunt. The legal situation is quite tricky and we are not left with many other options…"

They swallowed it hook, line and sinker and left their only child in the care of hospital personnel.

Annabelle didn't seem to mind much being locked up in a room with nothing but a mattress on the floor. Her blanket was extra thick to make sure it couldn't be tied or torn into strips. Megan made sure she didn't have to dress down and wear a paper gown.

Watching the girl through the video feed as she curled up on the mattress, Megan sighed. "I wish I could have come up with a different solution."

"Her parents provided us with a ton of motives… hatred… frustration… feeling of inferiority… think of it, if what they did in the interrogation room today was their regular routine this is like an accident waiting to happen", Tommy mused. "With that kind of attitude there's nothing she could ever do to live up to their expectations."

"But despite all their accusations, they _are _her parents and she loves them… so instead of attacking them she turned against the person that made her birth and thus her miserable life possible… Professor Milton Stuart." Megan sighed, thinking of Lacey's truancy escapade. Had they reacted too harshly? Lack of parental understanding had apparently turned Annabelle Stockton into a killer.

"I know you're not much into gut feelings, Megan, but she just doesn't look like a murderer…" Tommy shook his head.

Of course Megan didn't say it out loud, but she did agree with him.

"We need to find out what she meant by _mistake_."


	27. Chapter 27

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

Annabelle Stockton's notebook looked like she only used it for schoolwork. It was filled with meticulously kept files on what seemed to be every topic they had ever talked about in biology, physics and chemistry class. She even had a special program for mathematical formulae so that the symbols were displayed correctly on her screen and in the printouts.

Well, _looked_ was the key word here.

It didn't take the CSI techies long to unearth her secret internet browser history. Which led them very quickly to an interesting blog. It was called _the fertile union_ and showed them a different side of Annabelle… her latest entry was only a few days old.

_Sometimes I ask my parents why they spent so much money on having a baby when there were clearly other things they could have invested it in, things they would have liked just as much. A yacht… a Corvette… a nice steel wrist watch… Mom ALWAYS immediately, like a Pavlov dog, reacts with a sappy "But we had so much love to give, darling!" Nice answer. _

_As a standalone. _

_I once inquired further, however…"Then why didn't you simply adopt a baby after the first few attempts at artificial insemination didn't work? Couldn't you have given all that love to a baby from China or something?" _

_The color of her face changed. _

_She started struggling for words. _

_I could almost see the little cogs in her head going into overdrive, trying to come up with a lucid explanation. _

_It would have been priceless, had it not been so sad. _

_In the end I was fed some BS about not wanting to remove a baby from its "natural cultural environment". _

_Jeez. _

_I guess the real reason is that it wouldn't have been "their" child. Adoption of a kid that didn't look like them would have made it loud and clear to the rest of the world that either mom was unable to get pregnant or that dad was unable to get her pregnant – and what would "people" think of them then…_

_The way I understand it at first there was simply the wish to have a child. I really do think the whole _all that love and wanting to share_-thing was true in the beginning. So they tried it the time proven normal way… and it didn't work. Ah well, that's normal, isn't it, not everybody gets preggers immediately. Another month… same result… and then another… and another… the jokes about not the desired outcome but the attempts being pretty good anyway started getting old… After lots of discussion they consulted a doctor… and then another… the jokes about breaking the world record in waiting in waiting rooms started getting old… and somewhere in between the whole thing became a challenge. _

_A challenge to Dad to prove his manhood and a challenge to mom to prove that she is a real woman. _

_I think at some point they forgot that eventually, after lots of tears, lots of pain, lots of humiliation, lots and lots of money lost forever, they would actually go home with a small HUMAN BEING. _

_A human being with its own set of desires, motives, wishes, needs, skills and faults. _

_NOT a custom-made product that returned their money's worth with interest._

_Do you sometimes feel they're looking at you like they wished they hadn't lost the return form?_

"That's no simple rant", Megan mused. "It's a balanced and well-structured text, thoroughly thought out and lucid in its argumentation. Emotional and bitter, of course, but in general speaking more of resignation than of hatred."

"Can't be said about the comments to her blog, though…" Tommy scrolled the screen down. More than eighty replies, from at least twenty different people, as far as they could tell at first glance.

_Damn right you are! _

_You're so right on! _

_Couldn't have put it any better! _

_F*** them all! _

Apparently with the "fertile union" Annabelle had created a place for children who had trouble with the fact that they were the result of some kind of fertility treatment. Boy, did some of them go off at their parents… One main source of frustration was easy to determine: Parents expecting too much in exchange for the ordeal they had gone through to bring the child into the world.

An interesting anonymous interjection opened a whole new thread: _It's not really their fault – it's them medical bastards that should know better, but noooo they make couples go on and on, tell them there's a so-and-so percentage of success if they just pay a few thousand dollars more instead of just accepting that they're simply not meant to be parents._

About twelve people had taken part in the discussion following that posting, among them Annabelle. Most of the early replies consisted of angry agreements and expletives similar to those attached to Annabelle's blog. Then, however, Annabelle mentioned that she was supposed to deliver a thank you speech at Prof. Stuart's function and how much she hated having to do that, but her parents…

From that point onwards the replies could be roughly divided into two categories: On the one hand declarations of sympathy and rants how this was adding insult to injury, on the other hand voices that suggested she should make use of her attendance of the function.

Surprise, surprise, the first one to suggest that was the anonymous author of the posting that had gotten the ball rolling in the first place… _You should play a prank on him_, he or she wrote.

Almost immediately the other chat participants jumped the bandwagon.

_Oh yes, a prank! _

_Hell yeah, something really nasty! _

_Ruin his evening of triumph, yeah, that would be fantastic! _

Annabelle herself was reluctant. In the end, however, she wrote: _Ok, I'll do it. _

"Peer pressure", Megan said. "They convinced her to play a prank on the professor and she agreed."

"But not to kill him…", Tommy mused.

… … …

"This is your last chance to tell us the truth, Annabelle", Tommy softly told the girl.

Her lawyer gave her an encouraging nod. Megan, sitting next to Tommy, wondered how the legal representative had managed to keep the parents out of the room this time around.

Annabelle, however, didn't say a word.

"You're still trying to wrap your head around the fact that you're responsible for someone's death, aren't you?", Megan asked gently, reached out and took the girl's hand.

"Let me tell you what happened." She lightly squeezed her hand. "You agreed to a silly joke, a stupid little prank to get back at your parents for treating you like an underperforming investment. Someone suggested to put something harmless in the professor's drink, a laxative perhaps, or something that would cause him to burp during his thank you speech…"

"Turn his tongue blue", Annabelle whispered.

Finally they were getting somewhere. Of course they would have figured this out by going through her e-mails soon enough, but it would be important for the later trial that Annabelle actively contributed to the case's solution. It would significantly influence the form of her punishment. Tommy would definitely testify that without her help they'd have never cracked the case. Megan would say the same.

"You wanted to produce the respective substance by yourself, right? With your knowledge of chemistry it wouldn't have been too difficult", Megan continued.

"I was warned", Annabelle replied slowly. "The person from the blog… a boy named Jake… he said homemade stuff could cause unforeseeable results…. But he had something one-hundred percent harmless… He sent it to me… I should have analyzed it!"

The girl broke into tears.

Tommy's cell phone signaled. Adam Lucas. "We've got a name and an address to those postings."


	28. Chapter 28

**Disclaimer: I don't own Body of Proof and intend no copyright infringement. **

_**A/N: Folks, I'm terribly sorry but I'm a bit tired right now. Job and life wise things have been rather exhausting lately and I feel I need a little more time for myself. I'm thus putting this on hiatus for about a month and restrict my fanfiction activities to only one story I'm writing in another fandom. **_

The IP address that belonged to the person who had made the suspicious postings, had suggested the prank with the colored tongue and had sent the poisonous powder to Annabelle Stockton led them to a boy named Benny Jenkins. Sixteen years of age.

Damn it, another young life that would not get out of this ordeal unscathed.

Megan, looking out of the window while Tommy did the driving to the Jenkins' place, thought of the thread where playing a prank on the professor had been discussed. An overzealous DA could drag them all to court for aiding and abetting a murder.

These stupid kids! Why the hell didn't they stop and THINK for a minute? They had their whole life before them, all those opportunities, the things they could achieve, the experiences they could make… all tossed aside for a whiff of revenge, one brief moment of getting back at those they felt mistreated by…

No matter if the feeling was justified or not, the moment of triumph was nothing but a split second compared to the amount of quality lifetime they were throwing away.

"You look like you want to ask me something", Tommy said.

Almost startled, Megan turned around and studied his face. Damn, he could read her like a book.

He was right. She indeed wanted to ask him something. But the Jenkins' house was already coming into view at the end of the street, Adam was already waiting in front of it, Steven in his car.

Now wasn't the time.

Apparently Adam had picked Steven up again from somewhere. The two had a "just call, I'll come for you"-arrangement that basically sabotaged Megan's attempts to abandon her MI someplace from where he wouldn't find his way back to the ME's office.

Benny Jenkins was at home, so were his mother and stepfather. He had dark red hair, done in James Dean fashion, and wore a pair of those ugly earrings that overstretch the earlobe piercing. His were so big that a child's pinky would have easily fitted through. Apparently he didn't merely copy James Dean's hairstyle but also his Rebel Without A Cause attitude. He had a bit of a Juvie record to match it, too.

Again, as it had already happened so often in the course of this case, Megan thought of Lacey. She felt sorry for the boy. The next few minutes were not going to be pretty, judging from the information Adam had gathered about Benny and his family.

"From all we know", Tommy began, "your son had trouble dealing with the fact that he was the result of an infertility treatment procedure. It seems he had bottled up so much frustration that he devised a pretty devious plan to get back at the person he perceived as responsible for his anger and frustration." He gave the parents an overview on everything they had found out so far… the postings… the e-mails… the sending of the poison, pretending it was nothing but a harmless dyer…

For a while none of the three Jenkins said anything.

Interesting. Usually parents jump in with vehement declarations that their child just HAS to be innocent, that he or she CAN'T be responsible, that it was all a horrible mistake…

None of that from the Jenkins. The boy looked like he was brooding. The mother had lost all color. The expression on the stepfather's face was grim. He was the first one to speak up in the end.

"I'm sorry, honey", he told his wife, "but I've been telling you for quite some time there's something going on with the boy. We should have sent him off to military school the first time police brought him home… but you opted for the soft approach… now see where it got us… Murder…"

Benny made an angry snorting sound.

"Anything you'd like to tell us, Benny?", Tommy asked.

Megan glanced at Tommy with a surprised look. He was diverging from their plan. Tommy made a _give him a minute _gesture.

"I'm sick of your lies mom", the boy finally hissed. "If you really think I'm going let THIS sit on me…"

The mother made a sound between a sob and a shriek. Then she nodded.

"What is he talking about, honey?", the stepfather asked, slightly confused.

"I was not the result of fertility treatment done with frozen semen from my mom's deceased first husband", Benny said, apparently fighting for his composure. "I was the result of a one night stand mom had with my stepfather's brother shortly after she became widowed. Since the brothers hate each other, she thought she couldn't tell her new husband the truth, once they got close. She feared he'd start hating me, too. Well, not knowing didn't change much, did it?"

He stared at his stepfather with a look of outright hatred. "You used my computer and my online identity to make it look as if those postings, messages and that poison shit came from me, didn't you?"

The mother started crying.

"We knew your mother never was in fertility treatment at Professor Stuart's clinic", Tommy said. "That's what caught our attention. The parents of all the others involved in the discussion thread could be found on Professor Stuart's patients list. Yours weren't on it. But we discovered that your stepfather and the professor had been on a project together. Your stepfather later claimed the groundbreaking results of that project had been found by him alone, not by Milton Stuart. His accusations were declared unjustified by an inquiry panel… apparently a blow his ego couldn't take."

"OH MY GOD!" The mother buried her face in her hands. Benny was shaking his head, but he looked more resigned and bitter than shocked.

"You tried to kill two birds with one stone – get rid of your detested stepson and get back at the person you made responsible for the mediocrity of your career. The public tribute to Milton Stuart's life work was the stroke that broke the camel's back… you just had to do something and why not do away with your wife's brat in one go? You bastard." Megan was fighting the urge to slap his face… or worse.

As Tommy went to handcuff Mr. Jenkins, Benny got up, walked over to his mother and took her into his arms.

… … …

"What is it you wanted to ask me?", Megan said to Tommy as they exited the Jenkins ' house, repeating her earlier question.

Tommy hesitated a moment, then seemed to be making up his mind to go for it after all. "Do you sometimes regret having only one child?"

Megan raised her eyebrows.

"Lacey is fifteen now, almost grown up", Tommy shrugged a bit awkwardly. "And you said yourself you missed a lot of her childhood. Did you ever think of, I don't know, doing it again, having another child, raising it with more peace and quiet…?"

"Making up for what I did wrong the first time around?", Megan asked tersely.

"No… NO!"

She could tell from his face he was being honest.

"It's just… Back when Lacey was small… You didn't have much time to enjoy… being a mother… having a child… do you regret that? With all the medical possibilities nowadays… it wouldn't be too late…" He let the sentence trail off.

Megan decided not to answer. Truth to be told, she didn't know what to say or where this was heading… was Tommy suggesting …_something_… Was he thinking about leaving a trace of his own genetic heritage in the world… with her…? Or was he genuinely wondering about her feelings regarding parenthood, especially now that the issue with her father was cleared up and she had the chance to start into a new life, without that old riddle hanging above her head.

They walked to Tommy's car in silence.

… … …

"Benny Jenkins' mom is pretty hot for her age", Adam mused as he and Steven, left behind again, headed for Adam's car.

Steven didn't reply.

Adam frowned. There was a heaviness to that silence, uncharacteristic for their usually light, carefree banter.

"I'm not really interested in women", the MI finally said.

Now Adam didn't reply.

"Okay with you?" Steven asked.

"Yeah. Yeah… no problem." Adam was lost in thought for the rest of the drive.


End file.
